I often gaze
upon my own anaemic skin and wonder how I came to be here, and indeed whether the
premature-ejaculation that whisked me into the nightmares of so many was to be
more effectively utilised in flavouring a pervert’s frappe, or even
extinguishing the diminutive fires of a gutter-bound Zigaretten lest thine
progeny wrap its filthy lips around its posterior en route to the first of many
addictions.
Self-revulsion
is an important component in the fabric of ones’ existence, fulfilling its
duties herein as the violent harbinger of mortifying introspection and thus
comparison with the other mammals absorbing your Vitamin D and depleting your
ozone with methane-payloads at near-Bush Jr. levels.
Recounting
this most absurd being as the bastard child of a weaponised cactus, the next misstep in this 496-step plan is of course to wallow in the acrid aroma of the
scorched earth inclusively before, around and within my every indent : ‘Straya
(nee Van Diemen’s Land and the malignant mass attached to it), and naturally its
enclosed meat-pit comprised of every gutter-snipe whom escaped both incarceration
and the ravages of both physical and moral hygiene.
I am acutely
aware of your status as a “good global-citizen” and your classic tenure as an
easily-patronised provincial backwater; the unassuming, inoffensive boy at the
rear of this insidiously decaying classroom.
The truth is
that I see you, ‘Straya.
Yes, I did
notice the dense tattoo of the Southern Cross on your pasty shoulder – your patriotism
and masculinity palpable indeed.
Yes, I have seen
your bloated ‘Strayan sedan snorting along with its Detroit-sourced engine and
transmission, and numerous other “foreign” components including the airbag that
promises to spare the least stupid part of your face when that pole leaps out
at you – an irony sadly lost on you and the hubris coursing through your veins.
Oh yes, I
have been in the very thrall of the beating of your meaty fists against your
pale chest as you recount “true-blue” sporting victories, cheap conquests and
the cultured sensation of “chinning” that bloke down the Pokies in true “larrikin”
spirit.
In fact,
dear ‘Straya, I see you everywhere.
I see you
concussed on countless suburban pavements on Friday night as two others just
like you scowl and prepare to arbitrarily end your existence with boots
manufactured for $0.13 in some hell-hole
outsourced by another "fair-dinkum" ‘Strayan company amidst the throng of
acoustic-rock and belated sirens.
I see your
suburban enclaves and the filth strewn across your lawn; I see you at the local
shopping centre with your 17-year-old de-facto and your 3 children on a Tuesday afternoon; I see you in tabloid newspapers and on social networking sites venting
your prejudices, obviously formed by your forebears and peers, and yet
ingrained in your mind forever with no dissection or analysis; I see the glazed
expression on your face when you are confronted with change, difference of
opinion or creed or in fact any other alternative to that which you continue to
believe defines you.
Most
distressingly, ‘Straya, I see you in the mirror – my sinews ablaze with the
knowledge that we are as inseparable as any other disease at the molecular
level.
Being the
product and ultimately by-product of one of your typical households - and most
importantly the calcified remnants of a hollow afterbirth upon your cold
linoleum - I am thrilled to half-mast in recounting unto you that I don’t identify
with you at all in spite of our verbatim aesthetic and what you expect of me by
my very birth-right.
This sick
shell of mine belongs to you, and frankly you are welcome to it. The congealed marrow
within, however, will drift in your ether forever more until such a time as your
own egoism and myopia consumes you in entirety.
You are but
a name, a flight-of-fancy for the thick; an out-dated ideal that grows
increasingly irrelevant as your crust hardens and the few remaining survivors of your perpetual lobotomy awaken to this fact.
Dearest ‘Straya,
I can see your scars and no amount of foundation will ever conceal them.
I saw you on that beach in December 2005; I saw you baying as one misguided, embarrassing entity
raging against fellow ‘Strayans who had, and continue to have an equal claim to
the soil their assailants most certainly did not sprout from – a contemporary lynch-mob
fuelled by a pathetic hatred steeped in the notion that their status as immigrants
was less pronounced, whilst Charles Darwin injected another ounce into his
cornea from whichever nirvana his genius warranted.
I have seen,
and continue to see how you disregard and marginalise your indigenous population, reinforcing historical stereotypes and incorporating
double-standards and scathing stigmas to ensure that this status-quo is
maintained and the down-beaten remain as such.
I still see
you clinging desperately to your false deities and historical comforts and ignoring
the ever-escalating death-rattle permeating the deafening silence in place of
your accountability, but this is to be your Waterloo (and not in the
multi-platinum Scandinavian sense).
You embarrass us all, ‘Straya - now brush your tooth and go to bed.
