Time

I was out on the paves in good enough time; the sun still warmly glowed through the surrounding trees undertaking its final duties for the day. My new, albeit temporary, Southern home loomed behind me; it was still a novelty, my whole new city was. The air was refreshing and invigorating and a far cry from the stifling humidity felt up north. I headed along the paves of the narrow street toward the traffic-prone Toorak road - though only to be stopped a house down. A chrome coloured BMW sedan, a nice new shiny model, pulled out of a hidden terrace drive in front of me, heavily-tinted preventing any view through the side windows. There was no need anyway. The same participatory men and women, of varying middle-age ages, constantly rolled by the house and bounced down the cobblestone lanes dividing the not-quite-any-longer colonial Victorian terraces crowding South Yarra.

Without a glance it pulled out and growled past its German brothers and European cousins that sat idly lining both sides of the tiny one-way street; not even constituting a single lane on a highway, three cars abreast as the BMW squeezed through, lined from top to bottom all hours of the day with these vehicles. The space had never been intended as a road or parking lot and had been poorly renovated as a result; extended as wide as possible, some areas consisted only centimetres of footpath between the gutters and the terrace doors. The doors themselves were a façade; the quaint cosy interiors had long since been slapped with modern furnishings and maximised spacious living plans to push multi-million dollar price-tags. The exteriors were on the way out too in favour of the archetypal architectural dream home design; though at least those monstrosities made no pretence of intent.

I caught up with my tinted neighbour whose immediate intent was a right turn across four lanes on to Toorak. He was yet to spot a sufficient gap as I took a hard left toward the tram stop. I hopped on without fare and headed south bound. A united nations of cars formed a frustrated queue as I rode along; the tram crawled at 40k’s an hour and stopped every fifty meters or so to trade passengers. On Chapel the lights were dancing; the sun suddenly an ancient superfluous resource long forgotten. The drinking fraternity was already out in their droves jumping between the excess cafes and restaurants and pub and clubs. I dropped off outside Bridies, an Irish-theme pub that had hollowed out this totally imposing, grand and monolithic church that dwarfed its surroundings.

Walking with a carlton, the local cheap beer, I located Paul and Andy at a table on the stone beer garden out front in midst raging conversation. ‘I can’t believe I used to pay for that shit. Now, I’m like, I won’t die from hydration if I go without water between the office and the house’ Paul was nodding affirmatively huddled over his pint as Andy continued ‘Bottled water, man, it’s a capitalist scam but people are waking up to it’.
‘There’s always beer man’ We drank to that.
Paul and Andy were both from Europe, Switzerland and Denmark respectively, and were in Melbourne to use the Synchrotron at the University and many other things of which I knew nothing at all about. We had met only a month ago after joining the South Yarra Soccer Club but had built incredibly strong friendships in the time. The rounds of carlton flowed along with the conversation, it went and warped and twisted from football to women to weekend plans to how we would all meet up in Europe in a few months to life. All universal we could relate to and when one of us spoke it was greeted with ‘Yeah mann!’ and Yes!’ and ‘I know!’.

Then, rounds later in the early hours, we became restless and made a move to Temperance; we were fortunate to get in without any girls with us. Here the music was loud and bad and had the 25 to 35 clientele moving like it was the nineteen-nineties. The DJ working his iPod like there was no tomorrow! We grabbed more expensive carltons and sank into the wild scene. Paul got talking to a girl in the smoking section, the only place you can actually talk without having to scream what? or give fake affirming nods and yeah I know’s. She and her girlfriends had come in a 45 minute taxi ride from the outer suburbs. It was hard to comprehend. The girl’s sister who was amongst the group looked no older than twenty, and she was pregnant.

We tired of our bar buddies and took off. We walked the streets a while, almost empty by now, accompanied by a few stray drunks still finding their place in the night, the odd taxi cruised by in search of any final business. Then I looked for home and finished with my Brothers and Chapel Street. I rounded Toorak; a market was already opening, a Chinese man was unloading his fruit on the street, his dilapidated trolley featuring per kilo specials; I had no idea if they were cheap or not.

The final bend came as the sun crept over the terrace roofing. The street was dead, the lifeless cars glistened as the first rays of the day fought away the collected dew, the terraces utterly empty as I strolled past on the smoothed cobblestones. The only sound to accompany my footsteps came from the delicate whistle of birds from sparse trees in tiny front gardens. The only movement came from the ever-present breeze as refreshing and as invigorating as always. It was perfect. I headed in, to sleep the day away.