On the morning of January 1st, 2014, I purchased a 12 month planner with the intention of getting my life together. Nicholas Giacci, who I suppose was my best friend of the time, was kind enough to offer his help in affixing it to my wall. At precisely three minutes past midday, a black Range Rover sport pulled into my driveway. Giacci’s car, or more accurately his mother’s, may be the greatest vehicular metaphor I’ve ever known. The Stallion, as it was sometimes referred to, was a needlessly expensive, tremendously bulky waste of a four wheel drive. I will also add that its piano black exterior absorbed so much of the Australian sun’s heat that travelling in it during summer (which is apparently the only season in this God forsaken country) is equivalent to briefly residing on the surface of the sun. It should then be no surprise that on this particular Wednesday I saw from my bedroom window a sweat covered Giacci stumble out of his car wielding a litre bottle of Bacardi and a single can of Coke zero. I then had the privilege of watching a mildly intoxicated man attempt to recall the complex manoeuvre required to open my front gate. This gate is perhaps my greatest engineering feat. I installed it three years previous when I first moved into this house, and since then it may have been opened 4 times. This was not one of those times. So I was further treated to Giacci wiggling his rotund figure through the minuscule opening that permanently plagues my gate while I made my way to my “side door”. Not only is my house at a ninety degree angle to the road, but its architecture is so mind bogglingly awful that you can only enter via one of its sides.

When Giacci finally made it to my door, he paused for breath to declare “Where’s this fucking planner at?” 
Giacci spoke like he was perpetually trying to imitate someone else. Kobe Bryant, in particular. Given his high top basketball shoes, his ridiculously loose basketball shorts, and his number 24 Lakers basketball jersey - you could easily be convinced that he also dressed like he was trying to imitate Kobe. It was at this exact moment that the overwhelmingly musty stench of his cologne assaulted me. As is often the case with wealthy 17 year old white males, Giacci wore cologne solely for the purpose of wearing cologne. I motioned towards my room with a nod of the head. He held out his Bacardi in a way that clearly said “you okay?”, I grabbed it a little too quickly in a way that said “no” and motioned towards my room. As Giacci made his way to it, I took 2014’s first swig of liquor. It was painless as it slid down my throat, but once I my lips separated from the glass bottle, the aftertaste of mistakes deeply stung my throat. So I made a sound that could have been that of a cat coughing up a fur ball, and took my second swig. I vaguely heard Giacci laughing from my bedroom.

Once I’d recovered from the typical burn of the sugar cane liquor, I found Giacci brandishing what I presumed was a nail gun staring intently at my wall. The coke zero can had found its way to the floor.
“You sure you’re in a state to wield heavy machinery?” I said, ignoring the fact he’d already driven here under the influence.
“Yeah boy, I got this.”
Then he shot a nail into my bamboo floor, and we both concluded that he did not, in fact, have this. In a surprisingly smooth motion Giacci simultaneously snagged the Bacardi from my right hand, and slapped the gun into my left. It was moist from having spent the last minute or so in Giacci’s sweaty mitts.
        “This doesn’t seem like a particularly good idea.” I announced, loosening my grip on the nail gun.
        Giacci said “na mate, you’ll be right. Just don’t shoot me in the hand” and picked up the seventy inch cardboard planner off my bed. He then sat on my short white cabinet, and shoved the planner against the wall. It was at a serious angle to the horizontal, and Giacci’s girth was preventing access to the vast majority of its surface area. Rather than trying to rectify the situation, which I would probably have done two swigs ago, I leaned against the wall and fired into it four nails. Giacci then slid down to the floor, sighed, and took a sip of rum. Miraculously, the planner failed to join him. To this day, it is still unclear to me how a piece of cardboard with three nails in one of the top corners, and one in the other stayed on my wall. Giacci must have been pleased with our combined efforts because he stood up, and dragged the both of us onto my bed. 

We didn’t say anything for so long that it would have been uncomfortable for the majority of people. The only sound was the occasional slosh of the terrible white rum hitting the top of its bottle. I find it hard to describe the therapeutic properties of Giacci’s silence. It was generally understood that we were not to discuss matters that burdened us. Independent of the magnitude of our sadness, Giacci and I were never sad together.
        “Fuck her.” Announced Giacci, his arms behind his head, staring vacantly at the ceiling. The Bacardi had taken up residence on my bedside table and had very recently crossed the half empty line.
        “Fuck her.” I agreed, sitting up to retrieve the coke zero can from the floor. I poured it into the remaining liquor, and very slowly swirled it. There was a great deal I wanted to say. But instead, I took another drink and gave Giacci the bottle.
        “So are we really doing this?” He inquired before letting free a tremendous burp. Whilst Giacci could handle the rum just fine, his stomach disagreed with coke entirely.
        “You know you don't have to do this with me.” This was not strictly speaking true. The plan I had developed to get my life together relied on Giacci’s unlimited access to his mother’s car, and on my unlimited access to Giacci.
        “No way am I letting you fuck off without me” said Giacci as he sat up beside me. “But why Swanny? Why bloody Swanny!?” He laughed. I joined in. That was a mistake.
        “I need to barf.” I stated plainly.
        “Tac yack?” Inquired Giacci.
        “Tac yack.” I acquiesced. Then I grabbed the bucket that was sat next to my bed for precisely such a necessity, and emptied my stomach of its liquid contents. The tacticality of the tac yack was far more evident before the gastric acid flowed up my trachea and into my mouth. Already feeling far better, I grabbed the rum and coke to rid my throat of the taste and the pain. Not a particularly effective remedy to that ailment.
        “To answer your question” I said between coughs. “Swanway College is perfect for a number of reasons. Chief among these is the fact that their uniform is pretty sick.” I thought It must have been fairly clear from this that my decision was thoroughly well researched.
        “Yeah, right, but it’s a shit school for preppy creeps.” Giacci said, greatly emphasising the preppiness of said school.
        “You are aware that you drove here in your mother’s Range Rover sport, you live in Manny Grove, and I’m willing to bet you’re wearing Armani underwear, right?” That question was necessary, there’s a good chance Giacci was genuinely unaware that he was not Kobe. “I promise you, you will fit right in.”
That seems to have put a decent end to the conversation. I think Giacci knew I was withholding information in an effort to maintain our agreement. I also think that he didn’t care. I reached for the top drawer of my bedside table, and opened it. In a single exaggerated motion I whipped my letter of application out of it. Giacci stood up and hobbled to his bag to extract his own. We threw them onto my white desk together. It was more symbolic than it was useful in getting us to Swanway. But it was one of the two things I needed. The other came in the hours that followed, where Giacci and I got drunk enough to forget 2013.

***

On Monday the 13th of January at 8:07AM I checked my mail for the first time in far too many days. At 8:10AM I discovered that I had received a letter from Swanway College. At 8:12AM I was informed that I was required to sit a placement test and an interview. At 8:13AM I realised that said placement test was on the 13th of January at 10AM. So I called Giacci who was rather predictably unaware of our impending doom.
        “I’ll be round in a sec. Just let me prepare.” Giacci said calmly. 
Giacci was, indeed, ‘round in a sec’. In fact, when the Stallion screeched into my driveway, I was still trying to tame the unruly mop that was my chestnut brown hair. I shoved a pop tart into my mouth, and another into the right pocket of my skinny jeans, and rushed out the door.
        “Shotgun!” I screamed through the pop tart crumbs.
        “You’re the only other one in the damn car.” Replied Giacci, clearly done with my shit. I hopped in the passenger seat. I was briefly surprised by the fact Giacci had relinquished his traditional Kobe outfit in favour of an outfit that looked like money. He was wearing a blue sports jacket, a white button up shirt, and beige short. None of it fit him particularly well, and he looked the slightest bit like a preppy creep.
For as long as I could remember the Stallion had been new. The smell of hard liquor and tobacco had started to creep into leather. The seats had also taken on the faintest trace of Giacci’s cologne. But it never made the car feel old, it gave it character. Giacci slapped his 120gb iPod Classic into the cable that he kept in the centre compartment. A playlist called “Pre-Exam” that we’d both composed came on. Giacci put the car in gear, pumped up the stereo, and we both started screaming off beat Watch The Throne lyrics.

One of the reasons that Giacci was part of the Swanway plan was the hour drive required to get there. Unfortunately, at the halfway point of our journey singing along to the playlist (dank as it may have been) became tiresome, and the proximity to the destination made conversation seem pointless. By the halfway point, Giacci and I were also pretty thoroughly cooked by the heat of Giacci’s car, despite the expensive air conditioning. Fortunately, Giacci and I developed a solution to one of these problems.
        “Pocket snack?” I asked knowingly.
        “Pocket snack.” Giacci agreed with a slight nod of the head.
I find it hard to pinpoint when exactly pocket snacks began. But I do recall an English class several years prior where Giacci looked to me and said “pocket muffin” before removing said muffin from said pocket and devouring it. Since then, it has been tradition to store various cibarious items in our vestimentary compartments before major events in case of emergency. I reached into my jeans and removed the poptart. I held it so close to Giacci’s eyes that he could no longer see the road, and I started grinning.
        “Tart of Darkness.” I whispered into his ear. The laughter that followed was characteristic of a terrible pun. A wonderful mix of derision, annoyment, and inescapable pleasure.
Eyes fixed on the road through my poptart visor, Giacci reached into his sports jacket and revealed a party pie.
        “Lord of the Pies.” He announced, visually proud of his ability to reference a single piece of literature. We both continued our laughter. There was a brief pause as we tried to consume our unhealthy pocket goods. This was unsuccessful, our laughter grew hysterical, and we completely lost the plot. 

Swanway College was an immense school. It was several orders of magnitude larger than our previous school, Pastor’s College, and it was also several orders of magnitude more serious. Swanway looked as if it was built with purpose and a clear direction. It was inhabited by this great sense of propriety. At the centre of the roundabout that guided Giacci and I to the visitors parking there was a tremendous bronze statue of what I presumed was a past headmaster. A serious mustache garnished the man’s serious face, and his impeccable bronze suit commanded attention. The emptiness of the visitors parking surprised me. I had expected it to be filled with potential candidates sitting the placement test, but there were only five cars. Giacci parked the Stallion and looked up to the building in front of us.
        “Latin?” He said, incredulous “their school motto is in Latin?” Giacci did not seem particularly pleased with that.
        “Opus et vincit” I said. “Work and conquer. And their crest is a lion. A great big lion. I hate to say it, but that’s a bit pretentious.”
        “This whole place is pretentious! Even the fucking walls take themselves seriously.” said Giacci, his Kobe imitation failing through the indignation and agitation “Why did I let you bring us here?” He nervously started tapping on the leather steering wheel. Giacci was not a fan of pretentious things, something to do with his father.
        “Well, first of all, you drove here. Second of all, you came here because you couldn’t stand Pastor’s without me.” I replied, hopping out of the car. 
Swanway smelled intensely like freshly cut grass. An odour that was likely caused by the fact that the vast majority of campus was covered by an obsessively well trimmed lawn. The rest of the school was populated by paths and buildings that looked older than the country they rested on.
The size of the college was such that a map (with a scale bar no less) was required to navigate it. The placement test was conducted in a building that went by the name of Pally Hall. Giacci and I arrived a handful of minutes before the test began, and we discovered that the building was just as majestic as its name implied. The entrance was a grand archway garnished with gold, and I could have sworn I saw gargoyles sitting atop the vaguely Gothic architecture. Giacci stopped me with his large arm just before I entered the building. He reached into the pocket of his sports jacket, the very same pocket where the party pie was some time ago, and pulled out his hip flask. He took a sip, and gave it to me. I poured some of the liquid into my mouth, and winced briefly at the taste of Bacardi. Of course it was Bacardi.

Pally Hall was greatly unwelcoming. The marble floor clumped thunderously at the thump of my wood soled shoes. The entirety of its interior donned a red and brown hue. It smelled of dust, expensive paper and even more expensive ink. It had been lined with desks, though I guessed that only rarely was the patterned floor plagued by such studious furniture. Three other students sat at the front of their rows.
        “Preppy creeps.” Whispered Giacci. I couldn’t help but agree with his analysis. They were all wearing polos in slightly different hues of blue. Grey pants and grey shoes outlined their (presumably grey) legs. They looked like little wooden soldiers that someone had forgotten to bring to life. The hall did not feel like it was part of a school. Instead, it had the feel of a noble European church with its red faced headmasters outlined in gold adorning the wall. A man with a face that probably belonged on the wall stood proudly at the end of the desks. He, much like the school, looked particularly serious. He also did not look particularly glad to see us. He nodded solemnly towards two seats at the front of the rows. We were separated by one of the toy soldiers.
I found an almost guilty pleasure in the placement test. I felt terribly important being taken so seriously. I never found tests particularly difficult, and this one was no exception. A series of questions that had each been so carefully plucked from a textbook. Sufficed it for me to regurgitate information onto the paper, and I would be showered in marks. My memory was far from perfect. In fact, it was terrible. I could hardly remember people’s names, and I had no idea when Giacci’s birthday was. But I was excellent at regurgitation. At several points throughout the test I was vaguely aware of Giacci asking to go to the toilet. He was followed every time by a woman who I’m certain materialised out of thin air. 

When the headmaster/invigilator/supervisor rang the bell that indicated the end of two hours, I felt completely relaxed. My legs, mind you, felt terrible - so I stood up to stretch them. 
        “Down!” Said the man of unknown rank. I sat immediately, and that made me feel very well trained. Half a minute later (yes, I did count) we were dismissed. Giacci and I, unsure of what we were to do, followed the soldiers to another room in the hall. It was far more modern, and even had carpets. It smelled even more of dust, but in a stuffy way. The walls were lined with chairs that ominously led to a door with a painting of another well dressed man. Giacci and I sat next to each other, and the toy soldiers sat on the opposite row. They were eerily well spaced out, refusing to sit in front of us. For the longest time neither of us knew whether we were allowed to say anything. I, for one, feared the wrath of another serious person. Then, I looked to Giacci, and saw him grin. 
        “So how did you do it this time? “ I asked softly. I looked over my shoulder to ensure no one had heard. 
        “My dick,” exclaimed Giacci “I wrote it all on my dick!” He burst out laughing, and I was too surprised to even think about not joining in. 
        “You cannot be serious.” I said while laughing. “I doubt you can fit that much on your todger.” Giacci was not an intelligent man by most definitions. He was, however, an absolute genius at cheating. 
        “And my chest, and my legs, and I even wrote the quadratic equation on my left foot.” Giacci said “But my man sausage was the main event.”
That was fair enough, I'd heard from several people I trust that it was spectacular.Our laughter ended abruptly when the door opened to reveal the man from the portrait in the flesh. He was significantly shorter and dressed more poorly than the image led to believe. His shirt was very slightly untucked, his hair looked tired, and I sympathised deeply with the bags under his eyes. He called a name that might have been “James”, and the toy soldier closest to him made his way to the room. I hated waiting for my name to be called. I was always plagued by this odd sensation that I would fail to recognise it. So I was afraid to do anything in the moments leading up to events like this. Giacci, however, had no such fears. He was listening to music and playing some form of game on his Blackberry. I recognised ZZ Tops by the filthy guitar leaking from his earphones. 
        “Edward Taylor.” I heard the man say in his tired voice. It sounded like the very words were an effort for him to utter. That being said, Edward is a bit of a mouthful. But it was my mouthful. Though I was prepared to hear my mouthful, it still took me a few seconds to react. I stood up and made my way to the door.

The room where I was to be interviewed was the only homely place I had seen in the school. The brown sofa, and elegant wooden desk reflected a globe’s warm yellow light elegantly. Old books lined old bookshelves in remarkable disorder. The tired man made his way to the desk, and I offered my hand to shake. He didn’t take it. He sat down in front of me, and invited me to join him with a deliberate hand motion. He looked at me with an almost concerned expression before opening his mouth.
        “Edward Taylor.” He said plainly.
        “Yes,” I said “sir?” I added quickly, unsure as to the proper etiquette in such a situation.
        “I was not done.” He said. I think I saw a brief glimmer in his eye. “Edward Taylor,” he said “I am the Vice Chancellor of Swanway College. My name is Atle Myars. How has your day been thus far?”
        “Fantastic. You have a fantastic school.” I declared terribly awkwardly. “Sir.” I added equally awkwardly. I faintly detected another glimmer. I wondered if he knew that I had no idea what a vice chancellor was.
        “Tremendous.” said Mr. Myars. “Tremendous.” I heard the clock tick for several beats. I was very much unsure how to feel, and maintaining eye contact was starting to become testing. “Tell me, Edward, why do you wish to attend my college?”
I suddenly heard a strong ringing in my ear, and my vision went blurry. Why did I want to attend Swanway? Fuck, what was I doing here?
        “I…” I bumbled nervously “I want to attend Swanway College because…” then I stopped. I knew exactly why I wanted to attend Swanway.
        “Sir,” I said “have you ever had a dream?” I didn’t give him time to reply. “I’ve had a dream for as long as I can remember. I don’t mean the American dream, or any of those other mundanities. I can’t stand the thought of that level of mediocrity.” I paused for breath. For the first time in 2014, I felt a vigorous euphoric rush. “Sir, I want to be remembered. I want my name to be etched deep in the collective consciousness. I want to be indelibly recorded in the annals of history. I want to be remembered.” I felt it in my bones. The future was close that I could almost taste it
        “Why?” Asked the tired man. The glimmer in his eyes growing, he seemed a little less tired. Though it could very much have been my own excitement growing.
        “Why?” I said, filled with so much passion that I was ready to leap out of my chair. “Because I don’t want to be ordinary. I don’t want to be James or John. I don’t want to wear a suit and tie and drive my nice car away from my nice pretty wife to my nice stable job. I don’t want to be buried with my achievements measurable with a dollar amount. And for that to happen, I simply cannot graduate from Pastor’s College. I do not wish to attend Swanway College, I need to.”
I exhaled for what felt like the first time in several minutes. 
        “Well,” said the vice chancellor, “thank you for the monologue. Is there anything in particular you’d like to be remembered for?” He inquired.
        “No, sir.” I admitted. “I don’t care what I’m remember for. I just want to be remembered.” The vice chancellor gave me a tired smile. 
        “What would you do, Edward, if you did not receive a place at Swanway College.”
        “Probably move to the French Alps and live out the rest of my days as a marmot rancher.” I said absentmindedly. I then realised that I seemed to have used up the entirety of my brain’s capacity for intelligence, and I should probably get out of here as soon as possible.
        “I was not aware you could ranch marmots.” Said the chancellor pensively. He seemed genuinely interested by the idea. I was preparing an apology for my odd outburst, but my thoughts were cut short by the Mr. Myars. “Do you have any questions for me?” He asked. I was rather confused by this question, as I was under the impression that I was meant to be the interviewee. Fortunately, there was one thing I wanted to clarify.
        “Why are there so few students here today?” I asked
        “It is very rare for people to join Swanway College for their final year of school.” Said the vice chancellor. “Most parents see Swanway as a journey for their children.”
Well that was a concerning piece of information. I saw visions of Giacci and I as outcasts, and my confidence took a hit.
        “Speaking of parents,” he said, interrupting my train of thought “would you like me to speak to yours about the experience that Swanway College provides.”
        “Oh, that won’t be necessary.” I answered nonchalantly.
        “Are you sure?” He insisted
        “Yes.” I answered, probably a little too quickly. 
Having apparently gotten the message, he leaned back into his chair and sighed. He scribbled several words onto a sheet of paper with a beautiful fountain pen, and looked at me.
        “Well, Edward Taylor,” he said “I’d like to see more of you.” He paused to sigh again. “Can you fetch the boy you were sat next to for me. Please.”
I nodded.
        “You may leave.” He said with a hint of a smile. So I did.

I sent Giacci in, and sat down in my earlier spot. For the next quarter hour I heard his intermittent booming laughter through the door. He walked out seeming far more full of energy than I felt. Mr. Myars was behind him, and he seemed envigored too. Giacci was excellent at sharing his vigour. I saw the strength leave Myars as he called out the next name, and he returned to that same tired man who interviewed me.
We navigated the school shaped maze to return to Giacci’s car. I was exhausted, and once we found the visitors parking I almost fell into the Stallion. We rode home to the sound of Bob Seger, Don McLean and Bruce Springsteen. I think I fell asleep.

***

January 15th was my birthday. I was born at 3AM, and so ever since I was old enough to do so, I would crack open a beer at that time. January 15th 2014 was my 17th birthday, and it was no different. Little Creatures Pale Ale, leftover from a part of 2013 I’d rather forget. As far as beer goes, it was delicious. Not so delicious, though, at three in the morning. 

At half past 8 in the morning I heard the repetitive thump of Giacci’s rap songs pull into my driveway. Fuck I thought of course he’s here. I was not a fan of birthday celebrations. In fact, I was not a fan of being at the centre of any kind of celebration. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed parties as much as the next guy, I just disliked the idea of a party for me. The way I saw it, partying was its own sake. Giacci disagreed wholeheartedly. 
        “Come outside.” Read a text from Giacci. I wondered briefly if he actually thought I couldn’t hear and see him from my bedroom. I decided to indulge him, and stepped outside wearing black short shorts and a white singlet. It was summer, too hot for fashion. I wiggled through the gap in my gate and was terribly pleased to see Giacci without his sports jacket. He stepped out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition. “Black Skinhead” by Kanye West was playing. Giacci was wearing thick framed aviators that he was probably a bit too fat to pull off. 
        “Yo, I need you to help me carry something.” He said, pointing to the rear end of the Stallion. We walked over, and he pressed the button that activated the boot’s mechanism. Few things struck me as more awfully middle class than a self-opening boot. The back door finally revealed a large piece of what I thought was limestone roughly carved into a very approximate shape.
        “Happy birthday! It’s a pineapple!” He said, visually profoundly pleased with himself. It did not look anything like a pineapple. Though after careful observation I was able to deduce that it did look vaguely like a rock. I was now put in the very awkward position of trying to be grateful for a gift that is clearly shit.
        “It’s brilliant. I love it!” I said, trying my best to sound overjoyed - though I think I only made it to underjoyed. Giacci didn’t seem to mind
        “Where’ll we put it?” He asked. I didn’t really fancy the idea of putting it anywhere. Perhaps a quarry? 
        “I reckon we should keep it in the Stallion.” I said, putting on a thoughtful expression. “That way, we can always have it with us.” For some utter bullshit that sounded pretty convincing to me. Two birds, one stone: I kept this atrocity out of my house, and Giacci seemed pleased.
        “Yeah right, sounds tight.” He said. I noticed that he couldn’t stop admiring his creation.
        “So,” I said hesitantly “when did you even make this?”
        “I’ve been having classes for a few weeks now. I wanted to learn carving because stone is hard as a motherfucker, and it’s something I know I can be stronger than. Teacher reckons I’ve been getting pretty good.”
        “I would have to agree.” I did not agree with the majority of what he’d just said. But stone was probably hard as a motherfucker, so I did agree with that.

Fortunately for me, limestone was not the only thing Giacci had brought. We found ourselves in my basement drinking Bacardi and smoking menthol cigarettes for a great portion of the day. My basement was a very fragmented place. It was decked with a television, my collection of guitars (none of which had known the touch of a human hand for years) and my alcohol cabinet. But the main attraction was a collection of books that lined my walls to such an extent that not an inch of the wall was visible. And yet despite all this, my basement had no chairs. But it did have two chaises longues on which Giacci and I were sprawled on by four in the afternoon. I was profoundly drunk, and several deep thoughts were crossing my mind.
        “Do you reckon,” I slurred “I should paint a mural of myself on the ceiling?” That sounded like a fine idea to me, and the vocalisation of it only made it more excellent.
I heard no reply, and looked over to find Giacci passed out on his chaise longue. That, too, looked like a fine idea - so I joined him.

At 9PM, I was awoken by the powerful bass that is characteristic of huge subwoofers. Something that is particularly odd, given that I do not own huge subwoofers. I opened my eyes, and the first thing I realised was that my hands were down my pants. I remedied that, and the next thing I saw was a crowd of people I barely recognised in my basement. Giacci had vanished, and it seemed the dreaded birthday celebrations had begun. I extracted myself from my chaise longue and let out a soft groan. No one seemed to notice. My brain felt as though it had been given a proper beating, so I decided to quest for water. After I’d made my way up the stairs, a group of people I’m convinced I’d never seen before wished me a happy birthday. My garden was swarmed with more people than I thought lived in Perth. They were drinking from red solo cups, strongly reminiscent of an American frat movie. Antoine, a friend of mine who had convinced himself that he was a DJ, had commandeered my gazebo. He’d brought with him his set of speakers and he was playing EDM. Antoine’s mad DJing skills consisted of putting on a spotify playlist, doing a line of blow, and passing out. We were currently at step two of this process. Before I could find water (which, by this point, I was pretty sure I would never find anyway) someone grabbed me by the arm and pulled me violently towards my car port. It was Giacci, he had a bottle of Bacardi duct taped to his right hand, and he looked terrified. I had to start running in order to stay upright. 
        “Why the..? “ I said, confused and a little drunk. 
        “Edward liquor hands.” He cut me off, now guiding me towards my gate. 
        “Yeah, but, why?”
        “Because Edward Scissor Hands. y’know. Off that one Depp movie.”
        “Yeah, no. I get that. I just… Never mind.” I lacked the patience necessary to obtain constructive information from Giacci. Sometimes, it was best to just leave it. “Why are we running?”
        “I fucked up.”
Fucking up was far from unusual for Giacci. Something that was likely a product of his extremely poor decision making, even at the best of times. In order to deal with this, we slipped out of the gate gap and started heading for the river. The Swan River was a monstrous body of water around which Perth had grown. As the name would indicate, it was inhabited by a large number of black swans. Giacci firmly believe that these swans were merciless beasts of burden. I, for one, was not convinced as I was pretty sure I could take a swan. 
The river’s foreshore told stories of underage sex and street drinking. I had contributed more than my fair share of those. Giacci and I broke into a playground (which had no fence), and we both sat on the swings overlooking the river. He took a sip of the Bacardi, then I grabbed the top of the bottle and angled some of the liquid into my mouth. We sat in silence for a few minutes.
        “What did you do?” I asked, still staring into the open river.
        “Just the usual.”
That presumably meant he’d stuck his tongue somewhere it didn’t belong. Typically, this took the form of a woman’s throat, but it could very well be a hot stove. Abiding by our agreement, I left it be. We sat on the swings pondering life. At least, I was, but Giacci found a way to fall asleep again. Through means unknown to me, he managed to remain perched on the black plastic. Given his situation, I concluded that I should free the Bacardi from his grip. I’m fairly certain that I ripped off the entirety of the hair on his wrist, and I somehow managed to push him to the sandy ground in the process. On the other hand, I did successfully obtain a half empty (and now very sticky) bottle of liquor, and Giacci didn’t wake up. So he would probably have seen that as a win for the both of us.

At half past eleven I saw someone walk down the hill to the foreshore and sit in the sand with their feet in the water. Since my Bacardi was running low, and Giacci had yet to return to the land of the living, drunk me thought it would be best to accost them. 
        “When you smile” she said (because it was, indeed a she) “do you mean it?” she kept her eyes on the river. Her voice sounded like warmth, and I bet her mouth would have tasted the same.
        “Hey, ” I said “I’m doing very well thank you. Isn’t that an odd question to ask a riverside stranger?”
        “We don’t have time for small talk.” She proclaimed as if it was the greatest truth the world had ever known.
        “Why, are you going somewhere?”
        “Anywhere but here.” She replied swiftly
        “Me too.” 
Apparently, that wasn’t the answer she was expecting. Because, for the first time, she made eye contact with me. Well, I say eye contact, she was wearing black Ray-bans so it was more akin to lens contact. She wore a Bruce Springsteen t-shirt (the one with the Born In The USA album cover on it) and blue jeans. I thought she must have been terribly hot in those, though she also looked terribly hot - so it was probably worth it. Her chest strained lightly against the fabric of her t-shirt. Red lipstick matched her brown eyes and her long brown hair perfectly. I knew nothing about hairstyles. Since I’d cut my own for as long as I remember. So I could only tell that it was simple and it looked damn fucking good.
        “No, seriously, what are you doing down here?” I decided to say, realising that I’d been gawking for a little while.
        “Some fucker up the hill’s having a birthday party. I hate big parties. You know, you just look up from your drink and see this swarm of teens. They take another drink, or they fuck someone new. And you can bet they’ll be back at it next week. Just makes you wonder: what’s the fucking point.”
Then she fell over me to rip the Bacardi from my hands. I think I saw her snap a pill from her bag, and wash it down with the rum. She stayed lying on my legs in a position that I couldn’t imagine being comfortable.
        “No, not me. I medicate to fight the feeling.” She said, in response to the judgement she imagined coming from me. Though I’m pretty sure there wasn’t any. “Fuck me, you drink this?” She coughed “You should try whiskey.”
        “I’ll be sure to.” I said, more as a reflex than anything else.
        “I should get back to this shit party.”
She left, not giving me a chance to reply. She didn’t give me a name either, and I thought that was a veritable tragedy. 

***

On the 31st of January 2014, I received a letter. In an unprecedented turn of events, I had learnt from my previous mistake, and started checking my mail every day. Most of the time, that was an exercise in receiving junk (despite my mailbox very politely demanding NO JUNK MAIL), and various letters addressed to the previous owners of the house. Today, it was a very respectful letter containing a very respectfully printed text that respectfully informed me I had been respectfully accepted into Swanway College. So I decided to give Giacci a respectful call.
        “Giacci, you fat fuck, get here now.” He moaned, which I assumed meant he would arrive soon.
At midday, Giacci knocked on my side door carrying two bottles of Bacardi and a bottle of Jack Daniels old number 7. There was no coke zero. We drank until the sun went down, and then long into the night. We didn’t talk about anything in particular, but we did occasionally joke about how fucked we were. Whiskey, I thought, ran smooth down my throat. I found in it a warmth I never had in Giacci’s white rum.

I awoke on the morning of February 3rd 2014 with a terrible, terrible hangover. I know for a fact that everyone has, at some point, woken up with a terrible, terrible hangover. I promise you, mine was worse. I could still taste whiskey in the back of my mouth. I noticed that there was still nothing on my 12 month planner, and I thought that was a pretty decent indication of how together my life was. I crawled to my living room table and sat in my usual spot. From there, I could see my garden and the street behind it drowning in the Australian sun’s light. Typically, I would appreciate the beautiful sight, but on the 3rd of February 2014 I closed my blinds and began the lengthy process of recovering from a hangover instead. This process began with throwing on a pair of wayfarers, and groaning profusely.
        “Could you please groan a little softer.” I heard Giacci say from the living room couch which he had melted into. If I’d had the energy necessary to be surprised, I’m sure I would have been shocked as I had no idea he was still here. I groaned again in response.
        “Why are we up?” He said, holding the ‘u’ until his voice broke.
        “School in an hour.” My tongue was painfully numb, it felt like I was talking with an ice cream stick.
Giacci rolled off the couch, and I think he made a *plop* on impact. He slipped on his thick framed aviators, and stood up. We both slowly, painfully threw on the Swanway uniform. Said uniform was particularly dumb because it did not change from season to season. Though this was why it was so sick, as I had conscientiously informed Giacci earlier that year. It consisted of a suit with tie and blazer adorned with the school colours (maroon and gold). Then we walked to my front door with something that resembled lethargic concern, but I think was meant to be panic. 

The second step of my foolproof hangover cure is crushing a double meat kebab with the lot (that’s eggs AND cheese). Consequently, our journey was marked by a brief stop at Manny Grove Kebabs where we ordered two of precisely that. I also purchased a lamington to serve as a pocket snack along the way. I was terribly glad that Giacci was driving, because once I’d crushed my kebab, I immediately fell into a dead sleep.

On our very first day of attending Swanway College, we arrived only a little late. Giacci raced into campus and took the roundabout at such speed that it woke me up. We found a bay that very clearly stated “NO STUDENT PARKING”, and Giacci backed into it beautifully. I reached into the glove box and pulled out Giacci’s hip flask, I took a sip and handed it to him. That was the final part of the hangover cure - before you know it, you’re drinking again. Our first class was supposedly history, so I grabbed the map and started navigating us towards the Ferguson area. 
Along the way I made a toilet stop half way down the hill that should lead us to Ferguson, and when I came out Giacci seemed to have learnt everything about the school. I found that particularly odd because the school currently seemed uninhabited (probably because we were late), and because I couldn’t have been gone for more than a minute. 
        “Alright, Ed.” He said, rubbing his hands together. “There are nerds, sluts, dicks and jocks - that’s what we want to be.” He paused “Oh, and, there’s apparently a pack of four or five smart dweebs that we should avoid at all costs.”
It seemed remarkably unlikely to me that we would ever be considered jocks, given both of our physiques. And, being fairly familiar with our character, we were probably more dicks than anything else.

After some more aimless wandering (admittedly caused by my inability to read maps) we found Ferguson, and our history class, F21, along with it. Giacci insisted that the F stood for Ferguson, but it was still unclear to me how he was obtaining this information. He opened the door to room F21 to reveal four or five (it was five) dweeby looking teenagers.
        “On the plus side,” I whispered to Giacci “you were right.” And then the teacher threw a whiteboard marker at us. It hit me in the forehead.
        “Thank you for joining us, gentlemen.” He said. The teacher was a short, slender, and terribly well dressed young man. He also had a damn good throwing arm, or so my forehead thought. “Please, do take a seat.”
Rather conveniently, there were two seats available between a pair of the dweebs. I sat next to one who looked like he could have been the alpha dweeb. His thin blonde hair was cut slightly too short, and his top button was undone. 
        “Hey,” he whispered to me, leaning over slightly “my name’s Jared.” He offered a hand.
        “Edward.” I replied, shaking the hand.
He, too, then received a whiteboard marker to the head.
        “Go get the markers, Jared.” said the teacher. Jared obliged without question, obviously not that alpha. “Alright, let’s run through some introductions.”
        “I’m Jared…” He tried to blurt out.
        “Nope, me first.” Said the teacher. “My name is Samuel Banni, I’m 26,  and I’ve been an educator at Swanway College for the past five years. For the duration of this year, I’m going to be your History teacher. Now you can have your turn, Jared.” He said, quite clearly pleased with himself.
        “I’m Jared,” he replied slowly, as if he were expecting to be cut off “Jared McOrr. I came to Swanway last year.”
As is typical of me in situations such as this, I caught on to the fact it was my turn a bit late. I stood up hurriedly.
        “Oh, my name is Edward Taylor. Please Christ call me Ed, though. Yeah, I just got accepted into Swanway.”
I looked at Giacci and realised that both of our sunglasses were still on. I snatched them off my face and sat down. The rows of halogen lights illuminating the room drilled directly into my brain, and I strongly considered putting the wayfarers back on. I groaned very lightly, and I think I heard a knowing snicker from Jared. 
Introductions continued around the room, and Giacci and I were treated to running commentary from Jared. 
Nathan Bloch, who I was always to refer to as Blochy, was a very stocky blonde whose impressive chest hair poked slightly through his overly tight shirt. He had the strongest Australian accent I've ever heard, though he was apparently South African. Jared reckoned his voice went down by 12 octaves every time he spoke publicly, I believed it. 
Next was Matthew Frest, who had been given the nickname Fresty in another flagrant outburst of Australian creativity. He was a terribly plain human being. His only outstanding quality was his head, which was far too small for his body. It looked like a peach delicately placed on a bookshelf. According to Jared, we didn’t like Fresty very much. I thought that was a little dickish.
Innes Isles was the only female in the room. Though the room could hardly complain, as she was an excellent one. Her voice sounded like knowledge, and I was willing to bet she had a strong opinion on just about everything. She introduced herself as “Immy”, which I thought didn't make any bloody sense. The female version of the Swanway uniform featured a maroon skirt (which Innes must have adjusted, because hers seemed dangerously short) and a white shirt. There was probably a blazer that came with it, but Innes’ was nowhere to be seen. Word was that she was not to be fucked with. 
It would not be unfair to say that Oscar Young was the strangest person present. He was the only person wearing shorts, which were apparently not technically part of the uniform, but no one had the heart to tell him. He had two buck teeth, something that was made particularly obvious by the fact he never stopped smiling. His legs were far too long for his body, that was accentuated by the shorts and the fact he was terribly skinny.
        “Alright gents,” said Banni (because apparently we referred to him exclusively as Banni) “Stalin was a pretty shit guy.”
It was then that I discovered that History class can be an absolute baller. Particularly when it consists mostly of broad discussions somewhat centred around single party states, featuring the occasional pen throw or bad joke from Banni.

        “Yo,” said Jared once class was over “you two should come to mine Wednesday evening. Shigs guaranteed.”
Shigs, I learnt, was a word that meant shits and giggles. According to Blochy, this was a measurable quantity, and he insisted that they had a monetary value. The next thing I learnt was that the dweebs (who now included Giacci and I) shared every single class. As we made our way to maths, which took place in the Brisbane building, not a single non-dweeb dared approach us.
        “You should know something,” said Jared “we’re the IBattlers.”
        “IBattlers?”
        “Yup. We’re all doing the IB. Just an acronym for a bunch of words, don’t think too much about it. Just means Myars thought you were real sharp.” Replied Jared. I thought back to the interview, and didn’t feel particularly sharp about it.
        “So...” I started.
        “Yeah, people don’t like us much.” cut in Blochy, who’d been chatting with Immy up to this point. Christ, he had such a strong accent.
The rest of the day saw the IBattlers swinging in and out of our various classes. Though we didn’t seem to do any actual learning. Instead, we shared in several decent conversations about our summer, and I tactfully avoided the subject of who I’d spent it with. I think Oscar might have taken a nap during our English class, the last of the day, but it was hard to tell because he’d put his copy of The Death of a Salesman on his face. He was definitely lying down, and no one really seemed to give a damn.

“You got a ciggie?” Asked Jared that afternoon. Apparently, that’s what he called cigarettes.
“Menthols. You down?” I’d made it a habit to carry a packet with me at all times. Though I’m pretty sure I was trying to quit at the time.
“Do I look like a fucking twelvie? You’re coming with me.” That seemed to extend to the other IBattlers (Fresty excluded), and so Giacci and I fell in step behind them.

As it turns out, we were going to a place known as “The Deli” to purchase cigarettes. It had become common knowledge amongst the Swanway students that the Asian lady (who must have been a hundred) never checked ID, which was a blessing for any underage addict.
        “You’re not really smoking if you can’t taste the roast tobacco.” Said Immy, “I’m talking the real heavy shit that leaves your fingers black if you smoke it too long.”
I wasn’t particularly sure that I wanted to smoke at all, let alone really smoke, but the way she said it made it sound so appealing. I also appreciated the fact that I’d always associated menthol cigarettes with 17 year old girls, and Immy was a wonderful infraction to that.
Cigarettes acquired (Jared opted for ‘rollies’, because he wanted to ‘show me a good time’), we headed for a park very near Swanway train station. It featured a gazebo that cast beautiful shade on us all, shielding us from the terrible sun.
        “You know how the placebo effect does that thing about sugar pills.” Said Oscar. I wasn’t actually sure what he meant, but Jared nodded enthusiastically.
        “Well, I think the gazebo effect is that thing with shade.” Oscar declared after much thought. I had no idea what he was on about, but I did find it particularly funny.
Jared handed Giacci and I a thin, and very delicately rolled, cigarette each. I brought it to my lips, and he lit it with a Zippo he removed from his school bag. I took one long drag. 
        “Hey, hey, hey, how good is it!” Said Jared in a statement that should have been a question. It was fucking awful, it tasted like caramelised dirt and smoked salmon. But I smiled and took another drag. Giacci and I made eye contact, and his eyes expressed such concern that I knew he’d had the same experience as I. Hand rolled cigarettes then, I concluded, are something you smoke more for the company than for the flavour.

***

The 5th of February 2014 was a Wednesday, one where Giacci and I were expected to get to Jared’s in the evening. He lived a leisurely fifteen minute drive from my Manny Grove home. I had no idea what exactly was going down at Jared’s, and that was very much reflected in my outfit. I wore blue rugby shorts and a white singlet, but I had thrown on a Ralph Lauren shirt and I had boat shoes on my feet. Giacci, on the other hand, had expressed no such stylistic concerns, and was feeling very much at home in his basketball apparel.
Jared’s house was a cylinder. Giacci and I thought that was very odd. I knocked on the giant glass front door that grew out of the white walls. Jared opened it, and ushered us inside. I distinctly recognised the bass line from Jay Z’s “Trouble” playing in the background. As it turns out, Jared’s house got even stranger. Inside the cylinder that formed the outside of his house there was another cylinder around which the residence was built. The inside tube was technically outside through lack of ceiling, and there was a pond containing - according to Jared - nine koi fish. Blochy and Immy were in the pool room. Not that they were playing pool, they were lying on a futon drinking a Corona each and occasionally laughing. Jared offered the both of us one, and then he cut us each a slice of lime on the pool table. He opened the window door that led to a minuscule garden and gave us some cushions to sit on.
        “Yeah, sorry, they snagged the futons already.” He said.
Blochy and Immy slid over to us, and the five of us overlooked the garden (I was actually looking at the road behind it). We sat there, and for the first time in a year I felt like I was part of something.
        “Who’s car is that?” Said Jared, pointing to the Stallion.
        “Mine.” Claimed Giacci.
        “His mother’s.” I corrected.
        “You can fucking drive?!” Jared sputtered.
        “Yup.”
        “Doesn’t have a license though.” I added.
        “This changes everything.” Declared Jared,  smiling in awe of the possibilities he was likely imagining.
It didn’t take particularly long for us all to finish our first beer (at least, I assumed it was their first beer as it could only have been 6PM by then). Jared walked over to his fridge, not too far from the stereo that was still blasting southern rap, and grabbed us all another beer.
        “Have you guys ever played King’s cup?” Asked Giacci as Jared handed him a Corona.
        “King’s cup?” Replied Jared.
And so it began. We sat in a circle around the pool table on mismatched chairs of various heights. Giacci was to my left, and Immy to my right. The game itself was fairly uneventful, but it was profoundly enjoyable. We must have played it seven or eight times (I’m unsure, because I think I blacked out around the sixth). I do recall that I shouted “I’M BATMAN” several times, and somewhere along the line Giacci lost his shirt.        
        “I feel like Kanye West is my personal mentor.” Announced Immy (I have no idea when this was, but I remember it very clearly).
        “You’ve met Kanye West?” I enquired, incredulous.
        “We have a very close and personal relationship that he happens to be unaware of.”
Point being that by the end of our rounds of King’s Cup, we had fully exhausted Jared’s supply of beer. Apparently that is the reason why Immy was nowhere to be seen at midnight. Blochy chose that time to go home, which didn’t seem like a very good idea to me. Jared, Giacci and I had now claimed the futons, and we were all sat in the mini-garden. Giacci was barely conscious, but Jared was holding up surprisingly well. He ran upstairs to his room to fetch something, and I sat on his front porch thinking about 2013.
        “Surely we should get him a bed.” I heard Immy say from just out of sight.
        “Well, he probably won’t be driving home tonight.” I retorted. Giacci was now pretty solidly passed out.
Then I saw Immy carrying a brown case of beer I didn’t recognise. She’d changed into black short shorts and a white shirt. It had the effect of making her look like she was about to go to bed, but I think it suited her in an odd way.
        “So my dad, right,” she said, climbing up to the garden area “he’s been making homebrew. And this is his latest batch.”
She sat down to the left of me (in Jared's spot) and opened up the brown case. It was filled with thirty equally brown, suspiciously tall cans of beer. The lack of condensation around the cans informed me that they were warm.
        “Yeah, I just stole these from the garage. They may be a bit tepid.” She asserted.
Tepid they were. They may have actually been only a few degrees from boiling (it was a very hot evening). I coughed a few times.
        “Tepid.” I hissed. Immy let out a crystalline laugh, a laugh that I found suited her very well.
Then we heard Jared coming down the stairs, so we turned around. I threw a beer at him, but what he was holding was too important for him to even bother with trying to catch it. It fizzed lightly on impact, but no one thought it was important enough to bother doing anything about it.
        “A hookah.” Jared proclaimed before putting said hookah down to my right. “Now can someone get this fat lard off my futon so I can lie down?” The fat lard remover (obviously) turned out to be me. So I dragged him under the pool table and put a cover (it was supposedly Jared’s sister’s) over him. I didn’t think it was particularly necessary, forty degree night and all, but it felt important to give him some form of comfort. Then I sat back down between Jared and Immy.
        “I’m gonna go right ahead and presume you’ve never blazed with a hookah.” Speculated Jared
        “You’re not wrong there, mate.” I replied. In fact, I had very rarely blazed at all. Once or twice Giacci had stopped by with some green, but it was probably mostly oregano.
Jared passed me the mouthpiece, and I inhaled deeply. Now this, unlike his hand rolled cigarette, had a flavour I could get used to. I think, more than anything, it made me feel at home on this futon.
        “Do you know how real friendships start?” Immy said as I passed her the tube. “With a few good conversations.”
        “Right.”
        “So with that in mind. Tell me something you’d rather not.” She said, taking a couple of puffs.
        “Oh, there’s nothing.”
        “Come on,” she said “you’re only half committed to any given conversation. You’re bound to have a whole bunch of secrets hiding in that big head of yours.” I should probably have commended her for how well observed that was.
        “As you say, I’d rather not.”
        “Fuck me,” she moaned “What do you fear? What are you running from?”
I feel like if it weren’t already after midnight, if I weren’t already on Jared’s front porch drinking shitty beer, and ultimately if Immy hadn’t been so damn convincing, I probably would have kept my gob shut. But I didn’t.
        “Someone who I thought was great started thinking I wasn’t so great anymore.” That seemed like a pretty good summary of 2013 to me.
        “Bad breakup, hey.” Chimed Jared.
        “The worst, you have no idea.” I replied
        “Oh buddy, I probably do.” He said simply. I saw Immy nodding out of the corner of my eye.
“And you know, I’m drinking this beer here like I’m hoping it’s going to be some sort of magical elixir. And I’m just so afraid that she’s the one no matter what she’s doing, no matter who she’s fucking. And…”
“And you keep hoping she’ll find you.” Offered Immy.
“I keep hoping she’ll find me.”
“The universe is big.” Said Jared.
“Is that?” I tried to articulate.
“No relation. It’s just that it’s fucking huge. I think it’s funny that we’re in it.”
Immy hummed in agreement. I mean, he wasn’t wrong.
        “Do you think we’ll ever see it, the universe?” I pondered.
        “Like, us?”
        “Na, humans.” I clarified.
        “Probably not.” He offhandedly divulged.
        “Does that bother you?”
        “Not really, hey, I don’t really see a reason to give a damn.” Jared explained, nodding slowly as the argument started to make sense in his head.
        “I guess I appreciate the fact that the universe is big, but I don’t really think I have a place in it beyond the earth. Maybe not even beyond Perth.”
        “And that’s not really a problem, exactly.”
        “But I think I wish I could reach further than that. I think I’d like to make a difference. Hell, I think I’m terrified of being stuck here for the rest of my miserable existence.”
        “I don’t really see the point. You know, once you’re dead you’re fucking dead.”
        “Yeah, but what if it didn’t have to end there. What if you could carry on through. Man, what if you could be remembered forever and ever.”
        “How would you know?”
        “Does it matter?”
        “I think so. Surely it only matters if you feel it, if you know it, if you can taste it.”
        “Surely it only matters if you think you can.”
        “Surely it doesn’t matter at all.” Contributed Immy.
The last thing I remember is someone, it might have been Jared, shouting:
“You know this is some heavy, 20%, IPA imperial stout, right? One down and you call it a night.”
We had the whole carton.

***

On the 6th of February 2014 I felt far lighter than I had at any point so far that year. Some would argue that was a result of the night’s conversations (none of which I could actually remember), but it was more likely caused by the fact I had spent the morning violently throwing up into the toilet in Jared’s ensuite. I came down the stairs to find a shirtless Jared lying on his kitchen table.
        “Breakfast?” He asked, staring directly at the ceiling through a pair of black sunglasses.
        “That sounds like perfection itself.” I replied “What’s on offer?”
        “Bacon,” He said “and eggs.”
I wasn’t entirely sure why Jared was on the kitchen table in the first place, but I didn’t think too much about it. He slid off, and we headed over to the stove. I sat down at the table, and he got on with making breakfast.
        “You going to help?” He playfully proposed.
        “I’m more of the observe-and-occasionally-sarcastically-comment type.” I playfully responded.
The smell of breakfast must have awoken the others, because Immy stooped down the stairs, and Giacci crawled out from the pool room. They both sat with me, and immediately started abusing Jared’s bacon technique. 
It dawned on me that we had to get to school, and I did not feel at all prepared for that. Giacci drove all of us there, and I actually got to call a useful “Shotgun”.

***

On the 23rd of February, there was a party a few suburbs over. I’d heard of it through some friends of friends of mine, while I was out with some friends (Giacci). So, of course, he drove me in. Mind you, I did lose him the second we actually stepped into the party. Didn’t matter though, it wasn’t exactly unusual for us to lose each other at parties. In fact, I distinctly recall a particular party some time ago where I lost him for 48 hours. 
The party, as I learnt, was being held by some bloke who everyone was referring to as “Tommy”. Not only did I not see Tommy throughout the evening, but I’d never heard of him before. By 11:30PM I was playing beer pong with a group of college teens. I’d come to the table thinking that one of the lads there was Giacci (by virtue of his Lakers jersey) (it wasn’t). One thing led to another and I was on Brad’s team getting properly served by our opposition. 
And then I saw her. 
Black ray-bans, a Zepplin t-shirt, lipstick matching the colour of her eyes and her long brown hair. I noticed, for the first time, a little tattoo just above her blue jean waist that I could only see when her shirt gently oscillated. She was drinking from a white cup (presumably in an attempt to fight the sea of red cups around her), and was locked in conversation with a few girls.
“Who is that?” I mumbled to Brad, pointing to the Zepplin t-shirt.
“That,” he said, “is Annie Rose.”
Annie Rose, as it turns out, was already feverishly playing my heart strings like a ukulele by this point. So I didn’t really have much a choice when it came to talking to her.
        “When you smile,” I said “do you mean it?”
        “If I did,” she replied “would I be here?” She wore a smile that I hoped meant she recognised me.
        “Do you want to get out of here?”
        “More than anything.” She quipped with a hint of a smile. An excellent smile at that.
The party was very near to the river, as was most of Perth. We guessed which direction it was in, and started the lazy walk down to the foreshore. I carried with me my bottle of Jack Daniels and some coke zero. She ran in front of me and I think she danced for me in our illuminated streets. I wasn’t really sure what she was doing, but I found it completely hypnotic. The way her body would occasionally sway to this beat I just wasn’t hearing. The way I could feel her skin just beneath such a thin layer of clothing that It drove me mad to watch.
        “You know I’m not going to hook up with anybody tonight..” She said midway through a dance.
        “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of a hookup.” I reassured her, dreaming of a hookup.
The river from this angle was beautiful. In all fairness, I was probably being swayed by the beautiful girl that danced before it - but the lights, the streets, the buildings in the distance with their nocturnal windows, it all seemed brighter. I sat down in the grass, and she joined me in the sand. We were very near a ramp where a boat that hasn’t seen life for years rotted slowly.
        “So, Annie Rose,” I said, revelling in the amount of game I had “ what do you do?”
        “Nope, Annie Rose, that’s all you get to know about me.” She didn’t seem too bothered about how I’d gotten to know her name in the first place.
        “What do I get to know?” I inquired, confused.
        “Anything, so long as it’s not real.”
        “Santa Claus?” I said, feeling particularly clever.
        “That would be a perfectly valid topic of conversation.” She said plainly. She laid back onto the grass plateau and looked at the sky. I saw some stars, but I felt like she saw more.
        “God?”
        “Equally valid.” She said, pulling a cigarette from her tight blue jeans.
        “Fabulous.”
I very much felt like I’d been conversed into a corner. I looked at Annie and I noticed she had a cigarette between her lips, but she didn’t seem too concerned about lighting it.
        “So,” I said trying desperately to come up with something “do you have a dream?”
        “Oh honey, I’ve got a hundred.” She purred
        “And I bet they’re juicy. Go on, spill.” I pushed, and to encourage her I poured a Jack Daniels and Coke zero into her empty cup. She grabbed the bottle of liquor instead.
        “Now this is more like it.” She said gulping down the whiskey. “I want to live in a fair world.” 
        “Big dream.”
        “I’m a big girl. I want to make it fair.” Annie was, indeed, a big girl. I couldn’t have guessed her age, but she felt like she’d been around forever.
        “How do you propose you do that?”
        “One smile at a time.” She conceded. She looked to me, and gave me a smile that I was suddenly certain could change the world. Her brown eyes were so honest, and they made you feel as though you were the only person in the world when they looked at you.
        “You’re one down right here.”        
        “The preppy boy doesn’t really count.”
I didn’t really think that I qualified as a preppy boy after being at Swanway for all of twenty days. I thought for a second she knew which school I attended, but it was more likely the boat shoes.
        “Can’t really argue with that.” I decided to say “But alright, why do you want to make it fair?”
        “That’s a bit of a dumb question.” She said accusingly with a flick of her brown hair.
        “Sure, but a dream like that’s got to come from some personal injustice.”
        “Man, the world’s just not fair.” She started violently chewing on her cigarette filter. “I mean how come I can be down here - I mean look at how beautiful it is - with some cute preppy boy, and some poor fuck’s going to be sleeping on a cold street tonight.”
        “I’d do anything for a bit of cold.”
She didn’t acknowledge my quip. I thought it was very funny. I noticed that she’d gotten closer to me, so I slid down to the sandy portion of the foreshore. She pushed her body closer to me in a terribly controlled manner. She rested her back on my left arm, and brought her knees to her chest.
        “And I just hate this fucking society of ours where the rich get richer and poor get poorer. Why do people like you get to live in their nice house with their nice things? I just wish that we could all have it.” Her voice was a chorus of complaints that I almost took as a compliment. 
        “Do you think it would make us all happy?” I asked, genuinely considering the idea.
        “No, but it would make us all even.” She said with such bitterness that I could almost feel the scars in a past from a past I would never know. 
        “I like the sound of that.”
        “I’d forgive you if you didn’t.” Annie was a contradiction that resulted from her wonderfully accusatory rhetoric and the unflinching bias in my favour that I saw in her eyes. She must have hated me just about as much as I hated myself, but for some reason she chose to let me hear what she had to say.
        “Well that’s one down. Ninety nine to go.” I said, desperate for more.
        “I’d like to stop us from fucking the world.” She replied, not even letting an instant slip by. 
        “Like climate change?”
        “Like climate change. I feel like we’re just so obsessed with progress and cutting costs that we forget about the real costs of the shit we do.” She sighed lightly, and pretended to drop the ash of her cigarette.
        “And how would you have us change that?” I said, smiling at the challenge I was setting.
        “I’d make us see.” So much for the challenge. She made it sound so easy.
I saw in Annie Rose this pattern of dreams that she’d half explained, but fully dreamed. There was this lack of continuity between who she was today, and who she imagined herself to be years from now. And I think to some great extent that was what I fell in love with. Though it could very well have been the Zepplin t-shirt, or the Springsteen one she wore when we first met. Or maybe it was the furtive looks that felt like flashlights held towards the sky.
        “The point is, I think,” she said with an unlit cigarette between her lips “the good lord isn’t going to save us. So we may as well do it ourselves. Do you have a dream?”
        “Oh, honey, I’ve got a hundred.” I said grinning.
        “Fuck you.” She grinned back
        “No, seriously, I cling onto this dream of being remembered, but ultimately I think I’m just afraid to die.”
She stood up, and looked towards the river. She walked to the rotting boat and leaned against it slightly. I decided to join her, but before I reached her, the cigarette she’d been putting off lighting fell to the floor.
        “Fucking hell!” She said, aggressively cursing at herself.
I picked up the cigarette and put it in her mouth. I was standing less than an inch away from her, and I got a whiff of her intoxicating scent. She smelled like tobacco, or a muddy lawn watered with cough syrup. I wanted terribly to taste her, to know her. The distance between us felt indescribably big, and I wanted so badly to make it imperceptibly small.
        “You know what I like?” She said. I could taste her breath on my face now.
        “What?” I replied mechanically, completely lost in her. I felt so gawky, like an awkward teen for the first time in my life.
        “Big people.”
        “I dunno, I’ve never really liked the whole big thing.” 
She slapped me playfully.
        “No, I mean big people. I mean the type of person who has a real presence.”
I thought that was particularly funny because, of all the people I’ve ever met,  Annie Rose must have been the biggest.
        “You know, the type of person where you can tell that they’ve walked into a room. There’s just something there that you feel.”
        “At the risk of asking another dumb question. Why?”
        “Because you know they’re going to do big things. You know they see the world almost like children, because to them it’s so much bigger than it ever will be to us.”
She looked at her watch and let out an exasperated sigh. She pulled a marker from her back pocket and wrote her phone number in gigantic letters on my arm. Then she leaned in so close that I thought I’d melt. I felt her boobs pressing lightly against me, I felt her arms against mine. Then she reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and called an uber. Within the minute, I heard an engine screech into the nearby road.
        “Hey, my name is…”
        “I don't care.” She laughed.  “Don’t call me!” She said as she ran into the night.
It was 4AM, I was sweating profusely, and I had been irreparably damaged.