Transformations, by Riley Dyson (the Australian)

May 17
7 min read

Don’t mind me, I just have consumed and consumed every hour of the last little while and now I cannot breathe because the car I am in is moving too fast and it’s a little too hot and the windows wont go down and no one will tell me when we are going to stop. And I am scared I am going to be sick or go mad and be judged by all the other passengers.

Now I have consumed so much I need to spew some out, and as I complain about the consumption it turns my expression into a panic and I too add to the pile of stuff out there, well, out there, in the void with the space junk, anywhere but in my rib cage, overflowing and annoying the girl I love.

My coping mechanisms aren’t really allowed, to get on a plane and run away, to sit in a bar far far away and drink strong beer and smoke, to escape into the clouds and write about all I see on the way down, and they aren’t allowed, because I stopped doing that, because I did it enough, and there was nothing left to see, because as much as I would run and run, there sitting beside me, was still me.

Now beside me is my dog, that is my girlfriends, but mine too, and he is looking at me wondering what is going on, as soft calm music plays on the tv, as I sit cross legged by four burning candles, as she is out of the house to go to a yoga class, and I tried to go for a run to calm myself, but only saw more cars and more ants, and more noise, and to silence the noise I put my headphones on and listen to the same songs again, and I cant even hear my breath that is huffing and puffing a lot less as I move towards a healthier body, as I continue this path to becoming nobody, but… I am becoming someone. I am just not really sure who he is, or if I like him, as I wake up each morning and meditate, then drive in silence to a job that is okay, not bad enough to want to drive off the westgate but bad enough to have to drive over it.

Arnold (our dog) is nibbling at my shirt right now, that is his coping mechanism, and we are coping together beside the calm music and a glass of coke, we are both going to feel a little better after this.

Oh, yes, I am becoming someone I don’t like, someone who my younger self would have considered a grumpy and bitter old man, someone who blames the world for the choices he made with the great gift of life, and I want to turn to the substances to run away, to remind myself to watch the sunset and realise gods plan is glorious and do not worry, but I forgot when I wake up and I'm too lazy to do anything, to let god move through me, so I sit with sobriety and pretend it’s a demand but it is my choice because the escape was nice but lonely, and all the characters in my head deserve to dance in this world with everyone else too.

I feel myself slipping, as if I have become lucid in a dream and am slowly forgetting, like a bird who was flying home and took a moment to rest on a branch, and now thinks that this foreign tree is home and the journey is over.

Where is home?

I know, it is when these eye lids close and the souls eyes open, it is when this body sheds, it is when this fella, Riley Dyson dies, and it fears me enough to not waste anger in a life that isn’t mine, because traffic, or the guy you work with is a little slow, or you haven’t got a second to think of a funny thought, or you cant park there cause you will get a fine, or drive there cause you will cop a toll, or drink that cause you will get a smack, or smoke that cause you will eat a pantry, or really do anything, but wake up when its dark and get home when its dark, no, no, no, no. I can get angry and I just about have to, but I cant get angry and getting angry, and just be angry twice, and express myself that isn’t myself and now we all hate myself.

I am sorry, for everything, I am just not where I wish to be yet, and I am aware enough to know that the only place that does exist is here, and here I am, and this world they created for me is not natural, and I am not going to accept it, and I need to leave now. And see a mountain, and sit by a river and see a new bird, and remind my soul to stick around and let me finish my next book because I promise I am real.

I want to help people, and I want young kids to read it and think they too should thrive for something better than the fucking shit out there, and the noise of rubber on roads, and bright lights everywhere, and maybe the world was burning since the earth was turning, but it all evens out, even if you have to move away from the flames sometimes, and towards them another. I love my life, and the little challenges and battles within it, but there is a reason the kookaburras do not live in the city, because they would not be able to laugh, and that is how I feel with no silence in the night, with no space in the air for the wind to sing, the trees to usher, the stars to shine, the wombats to do whatever they are up to, and I will always be someone who does what needs to be done, and there is a bit of money in our accounts now, so lets get the fuck out of here.

On Saturday night I spoke to one girl who is a school teacher and we were speaking about shit and she said I should speak at her school to help the kids with depression and to prevent suicide and I said that would be a real nice thing to have a go at. Since then I have wondered what I would say, and although I don’t have that girls contact details and she probably cant remember the conversation or have the capabilities to bring it to fruition, anyhow: what would i? I would start with a disclaimer, to the group of one hundred, that ninety nine of you will just hear words, but for the one, I am talking to you. Would I mention Camus, who said that your morning coffee is enough to stop you from killing yourself. Well, they are kids, and not French, they wouldn’t drink coffee, or maybe they would drink instant coffee, which is a reason to commit suicide.

Would I bumble about, and have Ben Russell in my head, a guy I used to hang about with in my twenties, and think of him snickering with Lee Hughes, and appease to them and let them know I know that it is silly, that I cant actually help them, that I am not taking myself too serious. And that one boy, or girl, who could have heard a sentence, that reminds them to just wait it out when the decision seems obvious, doesn’t wait it out, and does the obvious that will very shortly pass, and come back again, and pass, and come back again, until one day it doesn’t come back, because you believe in god, or reincarnation, or yourself, or your goals, or your wife, or your kids, or you just know you are going to die anyhow and it can wait because it may as well, if life is going to be this ridiculous, at least it is going to have to finish on its own terms, without your help. And because I am thinking about the judgment of those who do not think about me let alone judge me, who are stuck in their own battles, the obvious decision it another funeral, another full life finished short, another community filled with guilt and shame and a bunch of people twiddling their thumbs blaming themselves or Trump, or the big gas companies or something.

Okay, so what is left but sincerity, and the act of genuinely trying: what would I say? I think I need some beer for this. Or marijuana. Or maybe mushrooms. Or something that gets me out of the way, because maybe I do not have the answer, because if no one is coming to save you, then how could i? Well, the kid remains on the ledge, thank you, well, young man, get down from there, because I can assure you, that this will pass, just like all the times I was absolutely positive that ending my life was a service to humanity, and all the times in between those thoughts were filled with things like my nephew being born and him looking at me the way I forgot to look at myself, or the time my mum wrote a poem and shared it with me, or the time a friends girlfriend told me she started to paint because of me, well… all the little things, they are worth sticking around for. Because it is true, death is absolutely promised, just as is your freedom to invite it to your door, and there is not one thing I know, just a few little pieces of faith, and that is that there is more to this, and when the world is quite enough for your mind to be, and when your mind is quite enough for the universe to be, what you do does matter, and if you are strong enough to hold on and let this pass, then you are powerful enough to convince somewhere else to, and if we can all stick around untilt he sun is shining on our faces again, then let that be the light that leads the beauty home. Ah, yes, home, that is where I was going: and I feel like I have flown enough for tonight, I am going to have a shower and rest back on my branch, and wait for my girlfriend to come home, and lay in our little nest with our dog, and I have gotten lost in the animal metaphor, but the point is: don’t kill yourself , I need you.