The Prisoner Gains a Blurred Skin

He remembered the decision to leave Naorni, which he had made the previous night, and ignored the distant noise, sonorous and continuous, which seemed to be familiar to him. He had just awoken, rested, and she was sprawled by his side, quiescent, under the white linen sheet. He relaxed; he had chosen his course of action. He liked her bedroom: the cream walls, the smell of naphthalene from cardboard boxes opened in the prelude to her packing of her possessions, the scattered volumes, often divided by creased bookmarks, her reading of them unfinished, and the sparkling circular mirror that could be spun along an axis vertical to its base.

He had been her lover for half a year and now had met Giovanna, who offered him a different means of escape from the social isolation of the capital, which he had tired of. Herbert also presented him with an alternative but was not a serious proposition; he was wary of actors, as he had once played in a mime company in Canberra, for four months.

Having confirmed his plan he carefully pulled back the covering, attempting to rise without waking Naorni; however, one of her wrists was draped over his thigh and her right breast pressed against the side of his arm. She slept fitfully; she was. attractive, and when naked, as she was now, where the bedsheet did not conceal her, appeared less stiff than when dressed. Clothes hid the balanced proportions of her waist and much of the delicate muscular patterning that provided her aesthetic whole with its structure.

She had sold this house, though the price that she had received was poor, and had made arrangements to leave for Sydney in order to remain with him after he was supposed to begin studying at the Institute of Film there.

He could not remember when he had last slept on a single bed and ran his palm over his chest, feeling the soft strands of hair upon it, which formed a matted triangle pointing towards his groin, and the ribcage beneath it. To be desired by the many was often enjoyable and gratifying but at this moment he felt that he was prostituting himself and maltreating those whom he cared for. There was an element in his character that prevented any toleration of permanency and this fault was strengthening as he approached thirty years of age. Awakening on unfamiliar territory was a norm for him, a standard against which he could judge himself and others. It was not that he disliked chastity; that could function as a mechanism in life too. He needed to take in affection in an effort to escape the reduction of his passion and hope. His body was well toned, though his only exercise consisted of walks across Mount Ainslie and bicycle rides; unfortunately his capacity to appreciate love was lessening and he was continually attaching himself to new individuals and groups and then moving on to others, relying on them for extra income and security. His parents had provided him with a sizeable sum of money in the hope that he might settle down, to no avail; the cash had simply allowed him freedom of choice. Naorni was his eighth lover in two and a half years and his affairs had alienated most of those friends who had known him for some time, by virtue of the incestuous nature of Canberra. Everyone that he met eventually served to circumscribe him and he anticipated that Giovanna would be no different and that after they arrived at the community media centre in Melbourne and lived together he would become tired of his failure to perceive a link with her and annoyed by her two young children and depart.

He moved Naorni's hand and bent up; she stirred. Where he had slept there was an area of crinkled cloth. She yawned, pulled the sheet away from herself and lay face down on the bedding, her platinum head covered by a halo of sunlight entering through the dew-trailed window The temperature was already rising and it would probably be another hot spring day.

She reached for the tea tray to one side of the comfortable new mattress, left on the Art Nouveau dresser the night before, took a cube of compacted, crystalline sugar from the silver bowl upon it, holding the sweetener between her forefinger and thumb, and extended it towards him, her eyes half-closed, her aquiline nose flaring once at its pink-cartilaged nostrils. He tried to generate some interest; it was mildly pleasant to be standing naked before her and he supported himself on the bed with one knee as he lowered his head to her hand, parted his lips and took the lump into his mouth, where it gradually dispersed. She was enjoying her indolence and he could not prevent himself from considering her commitment to him. She had already become so attached to his company that her goals had changed; to such an extent that his withdrawal from their liaison would mean substantial emotional and financial loss for her. He should not have allowed this situation to occur, since he had plainly anticipated it. Despite his distress he noticed that the faraway rumbling that had been present since he had woken was diminishing.

'You aren't leaving?' she asked, turning her head to look at him and drawing in her breath, uttering a low cry. He asked her if anything was wrong and she pointed at the flesh above his belly; on it was the image of a large hand, marked in a brown bruise which was turning green at the edges. He prodded it and felt no pain and was unclear about his knowledge of his own body for the first time in years; he recalled that he had been dreaming about a great bird with a multi-hued comb, a beak like a scythe and black, feathered arms. it had floated before him, touched his stomach and told him in a human voice that the origin of I-Am-That-I-Am lay in the being of this universe and that I-Am-That-I-Am was the kindness that surrounded it, only watching it. Terrified, he had attempted to stir, to grasp an implement with which to defend himself, and the chimerical apparition had spoken again, informing him that yearnings for I-Am-That-I-Am were not responded to easily, often or spuriously and remained extant and beyond repudiation.

'Who did that to you?' his lover said; the print was greater in its span than that of her outstretched fingers.

'Something, 1 don't know How? What is is it?' He rubbed at the outline; he could not remove it, and was uneasy that he was not more surprised or outraged. He had barely remembered the dream, though it had been vivid; it had upset him but he had accepted it. As a concept it was unusual, removed from the everyday pattern of his life, yet the fantasy lacked the emotional discordance that it might have been expected to evoke. 'You know it couldn't be anyone else,' he said. 'It wasn't there last night, and 1 haven't left you since then. Maybe you caused it, somehow, and shock spread the feature outwards. 1 can't explain it.'

She was no longer regarding him suspiciously and they discussed various propositions. It might be several bruises, coalesced into the shape of a hand; or, in an unknown manner, his skin might have become extremely sensitive and the edging of his own digits been left on it. He had read of stigmata appearing on people -cuts, holes, bruises, swellings in the form of words and tears of blood; he had doubted whether they had been genuine. The mark could be psychosomatic, have an unexplained basis in a physical interaction or be a trick, yet confronted with the memory of the huge bird with its rainbow crest he had an impulse to believe its assertions, to accept its existence. He screwed up his face. He was quiet and knew that, in his situation, his thoughtfulness indicated risk.

They donned matching dressing gowns of red silk and went through the corridor to the kitchen, their bare feet slapping against the polished Jarrah lengths making up the shiny floor. She spoke of how she regretted having to leave the house, which she had bought with the assistance of her mother after completing her Bachelor of Laws and Articles. Her father had never visited the place before his accidental death, in an aeroplane collision; the light craft that he had been travelling in had descended into the path of a flock of seagulls. Naorni had disliked the studied indifference of the man towards human frailties and the indomitable nature of his desires. As a teenager she had twice run away from home, once hitchhiking to Sydney, and on both occasions had eventually been taken into police custody. She would be badly hurt by his own rejection, by its swiftness, its absoluteness.

He placed some refrigerated croissants under the oven grill while she prepared the teapot. After laying out the cutlery he sat down at the table. He took care to accomplish a share of the domestic work when he was staying at another person's home. 'I can't confine my self-respect to areas of triviality,' he said, tapping the ceramic teacup before him with the porcelain-inlaid teaspoon. She asked him what he meant by his remark. 'I'm superficial,' he told her, as she poured the drink into his vessel while holding a strainer across the stream of water; the discretionary catch sifted most of the tiny leaves. The aromatic smell of the Sri Lankan brew was almost sensual.

'You're not, at all,' she replied. 'You suffer from self-doubt, you keep needing to have your worth proved to yourself by those around you. Every morning when you wake I'm next to you, isn't that enough?'

He stirred his tea and sipped it, unable to answer her immediately All his life he had found it easy to ignore the truth and accommodate to subterfuges and omissions because it made life easier and enabled him to remain comfortable within the social fabric of his current milieu for a longer period of time. His constant arguments with his parents and the fundamental discords that existed between his mother and father had first engendered the habit of avoidance in him. He should reassure his lover now She wanted him to tell her that she confirmed his identity - that the divestment of her land and her plan to move with him, to complement his stated ambition to be a film editor, proved her love, and was all that he required. He was unable to say that. He envisaged her history, up to and including the last half year. She had made a steady progression towards maturity, and had experienced few setbacks in her development.

'By going to Sydney,' he said, 'you'll be abandoning any prospects of becoming a junior partner in the law firm.'

She was nervous at the direction that his conversation was taking and traced the corner of her jaw with her index finger.

'You know I'm aware of that, we've discussed it at length. You seem strange today; perhaps you're ill. Maybe it's the bruise.' He said that he felt fine physically 'I've found a two-bedroom flat in Newtown,' she continued. 'We can discuss it later; 1 think you'll be interested, the tenant was a friend of mine at college and she's leaving for London and wants to transfer the lease quickly.' She talked about her prospects of joining a smaller, respected legal office in Sydney and did not comment on his lack of response.

Her earlier remark about his inability to feel confident had been correct; it had always been acknowledged that he had promise in those areas in which he had worked, but he had experienced rejection whenever he had attempted to develop a particular potential. As with his romantic attachments, he found himself unable to function in one field for long. He was diligent in his studies and always completed whatever short-term commitments that he made; and in his personal relationships he was not cruel or brutal, beyond the fact of his eventual departure, and did not initiate intrigues. Sometimes people took his restrictions to infer that he had a shallow or uncaring personality and he made no attempt to dissuade them; their ignorance would lessen as they aged and found themselves burdened with similar difficulties, leading to divorce and the bear-trap of boredom. He crossed his legs, the dressing gown parting, and was conscious of the sparse, dark hair covering them and the wiriness of their muscles. He had only become fully aware of the nature of his own body after he had begun his first affair with another man, a fellow student, during his initial year at draught-swept Monash University in Melbourne. That period of his life seemed like that of a separate individual.

There was the smell of burning matter and smoke was in the air; the light wholemeal rolls were scorching and Naorni rushed across and extracted them, coughing. 'We can't eat these,' she said. 'They're charred.'

'I'm not hungry,' he replied. 'You shouldn't put your trust in me.'

'Just what are you saying?'

'I've deceived others before you.' He sighed. 'I'm not moving to Sydney.' The actuality was revealed; it had been easy to divulge it and he continued calmly 'I was never firm about intending to travel there. I don't think 1 can maintain my infatuation with you. It isn't your fault; it's a general tendency with me.'

'I can't believe this. After all I've done, you're rejecting me?' He nodded and she walked to the other side of the kitchen, folding her arms, speechless for several seconds. 'I just can't register it,' she said, finally 'Do you think 1 don't know about your indiscretions? You bastard, two of my friends were at the theatre three weeks ago and told me you sat on that actor's lap. 1 won't let you do this to me.'

She vilified him and he tried to explain the history of his problem; he became aware that the necessity to leave was less strong in him and interrupted his narration to suggest that they might remain in Canberra for the present.

'I loved you, and now you tell me all this, so unernotionally.' She was livid. 'You're collected, but then you haven't lost thousands of dollars.' She went to the kitchen entrance. 'I won't forgive you, take your wretched fucking bread with you and get lost. 1 don't want you to be here when I'm back in the afternoon.' She was not quite able to restrain herself from crying and slammed the door as she left, the crack resounding in the room.

Sitting before the table he drank his remaining tea, which was cold. He swirled the lees around and watched the half-dozen leaves cartwheel in three dimensions, suspended within the dark liquid. Motion appealed to him. He would have to package his property, which could be achieved at any stage; moving frequently, he owned little, and most of his belongings had already been assembled in preparation for his departure from Canberra. She had reacted badly to his news and he would miss her but felt no deep guilt. it was for her own good. He rose, removed his garment and wiped his lips, which had kissed the wealthy and the famous; had he hoped that those contacts would impart a portion of the greatness of those persons? He folded the clothing and placed it over the chair. Walking towards the kitchen door he passed a window Its generous curtains, rip-striped in pale pink, gold and Burgundy, matched the jaggedly painted abstract which was framed above the mantelpiece, itself crowning the boarded-up wooden fireplace. It was not the mystery of the shades' colours that held him transfixed; nor the white, dazzling orb of the Sun over the intricately branched, broccoli tops of the elm trees of Commonwealth Park.


He greeted Giovanna at noon at the front door of her residence, which she was renting from a friend who was on secondment to the Electoral Commission in Sydney and was due to return in two months time. He could barely refrain from gazing at the immense edifice to the east, which had risen since the dawn. It stretched from one side of the horizon to the other and clouds came from its direction, formed in cubical, spherical, octahedral and other patterns; the unstained geometrical shapes were an indication that beyond the featureless grey wall or cliff was a controlling presence which was unable or unwilling to communicate directly with him, as yet. Though he had heard the barrier rise only hours before he was sure that in one sense it had always been present, rarely breached and completely invisible to most individuals, just as it remained undetected by them now.

Giovanna touched his arm; she was pleased that he had rung her and asked her if they could meet. She was attractive in appearance and could be charming when she wished to be so. She had abandoned her former husband after discovering that he had been conducting an affair with a woman at his workplace; given his own reputation for infidelity he had been surprised when she had made an advance during a lecture on film editing deep inside the National Library, a striking mausoleum to the '60s, a boxed, multi-storeyed temple, stroking the skin of his ankle with her sandalled foot, above the weave of his sock, her expression coquettish.

She led him to the lounge room sofa where they sat down, Giovanna's hands playing around his waist. 'Kiss me,' she said, and pressed her thin lips to his, as if she could compress him into a more consumable package. Her two girls were at primary school; tiny imitations of trucks, other toys, blocks of wood with bright letters on their sides and opened children's books were distributed over the seagrass matting which covered the floor, made of cord arranged in spirals within larger squares. They met every few days and she was eager for him to accompany her south and appreciative of his assistance in caring for her children. The twins were entertaining when encountered infrequently but he doubted whether he would be able to tolerate their attentionseeking behaviour on a continual basis. She was unaware of the existence of Naomi and thought that he was in financial straits and too proud to invite her to his home while his circumstances were reduced. She was conservative in several respects and he had no explanation for this characteristic, unless it was contrariness; many of her views were in opposition to the political attitudes of her fellow community services workers and her Socialist parents. She had grown up during the movement against the war in Vietnam and he knew that her mother had been forced out of her tutorship at RMIT because of her involvement in the New Left. Giovanna was familiar with people fixated with the impetus to change; radical feminist separatists and varieties of anarchists. Many of them had visited her family's residence in Yarralumla but she had been more affected by the nature of her surroundings. The Canberra suburb was a mix of rich bureaucrats, diplomats and a small number of tertiary students. Her parents' house was expensive, and formalist in its architectural style. Its fittings, in contrast, were experimental; her intellectual development had duplicated this dichotomy. He took his mouth away from hers and asked her whether she believed in ideals and she tilted her head, angry at him, her brow furrowed fractionally.

'Have you finished getting ready for the move?' she said, irritatedly. 'The director telephoned me yesterday and promised me you'd have a place in the video production unit. It's youthorientated and they want some mature age students as a steadying influence, and for liaising with the script-writers.'

He moved his hand around her upper body, following the paths traced by repetition. He desired her in a more clinical way than normally, analysing his own feelings as carefully as hers. He had rarely been able to resist the opportunity to have sexual relations with those whom he found captivating; intercourse was usually exhilarating but did not grant him the evidence of love that he sought. 'Thanks for the news, but it doesn't really concern me. You'll never understand. 1 think I'm undone.' She asked him what was distressing him and he replied slowly. 'Nothing's wrong, in a way. I've seen something, but you're the same. There's no right or wrong; there's only perfection or separation.' He caressed her shoulder-blades, the bones prominent and her muscles hard; she had little fat and her face was pinched, its skin taut. He had once watched a junkie with kneeripped black jeans, a singlet and a button-torn jacket, smelling of stale beer, walk over to her at a bus interchange and ask her whether she knew of a heroin dealer who was available to make a sale; then, realizing his mistake, the jittery addict had stridden off hurriedly.

Giovanna pulled his arms away 'You've never been like this before. You'd better tell me more; you aren't being clear.'

He wanted to explain that he had only just realized the nature of his former prison, disintegrating around him; before now he had been unable to escape the containing knowledge that he ,was alone in the world, that objective involvement with people was impossible. He had kept his faith in the possibility of understanding others and had attempted to immerse himself in love as a proof of their identity, only to find no connection with the existence of any of his successive partners. His comprehension had increased along with the input of his senses since he had mingled with the greater presence that had held him close the previous night. He was emotionally distant from the sectional and felt as though every pore of his skin was more open than before and a sensitive receptor. She stood up and walked across to the window, one hand rubbing her forehead.

Through the glass he saw inverted conical clouds which spun around rapidly as they orbited a larger, spherical one and drifted west; they were coming from beyond the barrier. He pictured the division as it might appear closer up: a cliffside with newly exposed earth and loose rock on its face; a wall of steel painted fog, with gargantuan plates and innumerable rivets, colonnades of supporting struts, elaborate tiers, extending down to the ground to either side of it, making it seem like a million-legged myriapod from above; or a Babylonian construction of glossy bricks and mortar. What was the obstruction intended to prevent from happening? The great wall of China had been built to keep outsiders distant and the Berlin wall to ensure that insiders remained close; both had been instruments of purity and that was a clue. He concentrated on this problem as she made motions before the window, which was closed, as if it were unbarred and she were shutting it, while complaining of the effects of a storm. He understood that all that he saw did not exist in a normal physical sense. He felt restricted within the house and suggested that they should go to the city centre in Civic and talk over lunch and she readily agreed.

They travelled separately in their cars and met near the large chess set in Garema Place; the hollow black and white polythene pieces on it were approximately a metre high, with microscopically thin lines, remnants of their pressed creations, present along each of their spines, birthed symmetries. People milled about the adjacent area of the mall, shopping or walking to or from eating places. She held an umbrella in one hand, its wooden ribs delicate and its cover a diffuse salmon colour. She pointed at the chess board, paint-brushed on concrete. 'How about a match?' she asked and he declined, noting that two scruffy, shuffling college students were already waiting for a game; their dumped, Biro-doodled knapsacks were at their feet. 'Bully,' she said, and went to an unoccupied bench under a gnarled Moreton Bay fig tree. He sat down next to her, avoiding the paper litter shoved between the wooden slats of the seat in past laziness. She unfurled the umbrella and extended it above their heads, the sunlight penetrating its rosy fabric unevenly. The cloth cut off part of his view of the sharply delineated clouds above, some whirling around continuously as they moved west, along precise routes. They provided a hidden code, one which might be intended for him alone. She commented on the likelihood of the return of the midday rain and he knew that she was under the influence of the source of his own, elemental, change; the sky was relatively clear and the mathematically based formations, the dancing steam-sails, were composed of white vapour. This was the third successive day of spring heat. Her manner of speech suggested that she was becoming convinced that he was unbalanced in his mental processes and he was doubly unnerved as he realized that many other persons nearby were holding up umbrellas. The crowd moved around them; she did not realize how similar she was to the horde. Age, sex, experience, activity, education and taste provided only superficial distinctions; people were bound by the common nature of their limitations. Nothing could be true for him until he could be absolutely and simultaneously aware of countless objects, billions of visions, the mingled saliva of all couples whose tongues slithered within each other's mouths, the clustered, yellow flowering of each banksia and the tail-swivel thrust of every never-slowing hammerhead shark. He was silent; the strange sights that he detected were the translations involuntarily imposed upon messages which he was incapable of comprehending in their brilliant fullness. He was certain that some omnipotent matrix existed; why did it remain separate and fail to notify them of its presence? It was known only by inference; few individuals such as himself were taken closer to it.

She suggested a Macedonian restaurant where they could have a meal but he told her that his appetite had diminished. it was as if he had been injected with a massive dose of pethidine, dulling the peristaltic contractions of his stomach, making it insensate under his cypher-inscripted skin. She became infuriated at his capriciousness and said that they would not be going to Melbourne for several weeks, or longer; the delay would depend on his recovery from his present confusion. She mentioned that she could assist him in paying for any help that he might need. He ignored her, thinking of the link that bound him to that other entity, which was that of his senses; the connection was not merely emotional, it was at some level physical, and beyond the subjective bounds that internal ideas were tied to.

'I've told you all about myself,' she said. 'I've been honest; I'm a pragmatist. 1 couldn't have managed to cope with the problems of single parenthood otherwise. 1 left my husband because it was practical, because he was unfaithful. 1 gave him opportunities to reform and he didn't think my warnings were serious. 1 admired him for his abilities but commitment's what's important. 1 really want you to stay with me, 1 can act hysterically if that's what it takes. You're ill, I can care for you. But I can't function with this distance of yours.' She stared at him. 'Aren't you even concerned?'

'It's difficult to distinguish you from the others, people I've known intimately and people... everywhere.' He gestured with one arm. 'To judge by my past I won't stay with you forever. I've changed, become different -'

'Why are you doing this to me?' she interrupted. 'Is this why you wanted to talk to me, to tell me we're finished before we've even started? 1 won't apologize because my view of personal relationships is purist. You know I'm in love.'

'I can sympathize, I've searched for real, connecting affection too; 1 don't want to be alone.'

'All you're doing's talking. Words are nothing, and yours are quite meaningless. I'm hurting, how could you attack me this way?'

She was hesitating as to her next step and he was glad that she seemed capable of dealing with discovery. His real sin was that he saw no evil in his own actions; he hurt others through commission or omission but held no hatred. He was free of anger, he could no more feel malice towards the many than he could find love. Humanity was a mere concept; he could manipulate people and interact well, but only by means of hypothesis and abstraction. 'Open up,' he said. 'I want more than speech, more than sex.'

'Do you get some sick satisfaction from this?' she snapped, turning away from him and berating him, while onlookers in the open mall quickly rushed under cover, as if a shower had begun.

Her perception of rain indicated that she, like the others around him, had been affected today, and was glimpsing portents that had no set reality. That individuals apart from himself were marginally affected was less surprising than his own selection for special favour. The shadowy figure in his sleep had said that he had summoned his extra sight himself and he wondered whether his longings would destroy him.

He pulled up his woollen jumper and shirt and examined the mark on his belly as Giovanna cried out at the sight of the shape of the hand, marked in ochre bruising edged with tones of amber. Her fingers, thin, the structure of their stick-bones highlighted, followed the outline of the imprint and he told her of the dream and how he had woken up in the morning, with Naorni's arm and chest resting upon him.

She was shocked at the mention of another woman. Convinced of his utter betrayal, his derangement, she left him without a further word, nearby bystanders, huddling, still, under horizontal shop eaves, watching them curiously.

Her departure might be for the best. He covered his eyes; he did not want to move his palms away and glimpse the wall, the presence of which entailed forsakement for the majority. If most were unworthy then it might be better that salvation, beyond present attainment, should never be hinted at. He eventually took his hands away from his face and wobbled to a telephone booth, a scanty plastic bubble, and rang Herbert. The actor was worried for him and said that Naorni had contacted him and informed him of his condition. Herbert implored him to speak with him before he found himself in real trouble. He agreed to meet the man at the large park before the old Parliament House, near the lakeshore, where the water converged with the automatically sprinklered lawns.

He went to his Citroe[[umlautfore]]n and entered it. Other vehicles passed by, their windscreen-wipers moving from side to side across dry glass. He should not be worried; the distorted vision of reality that their occupants detected was not as consummate as his changed view of the environment.


The afternoon was nearly over; the twirling nimbuses high above were tinted orange by the sunlight, which was changing in colour. He sat on the grass arena; the area was bare of trees for sixty metres on either side of him and all the way back to the white building which was the former Parliament House, its giant replacement capping the sheared hill far behind it. The base of the tower of the more recent structure was a skeletal cage; the oversized Australian flag that flew from its upper reaches was like a buffoon crown. He saw Herbert, dressed in a grey overcoat purchased from the Mancare opportunity shop and a knitted green and gold rugby scarf, approaching from the immaculate road that crossed before the old locale of government, the previous symbol of authority The actor was conscious of being under scrutiny and nervous and walked towards him, finally arriving and greeting him with a cursory kiss on the cheek as he sat down beside him. The man was only a few years older than him and in fair condition physically; the muscles of his frame were compact. He had a cute, ski-slope nose, wore his hair short on the top and had long, pointed sideburns. His stubble lengthened quickly and, annoyingly, he had not shaved a second time, in the afternoon; the spikes spoilt the delicacy of any kiss.

'She's very upset,' said Herbert, referring to Naorni. 'She cares about you, it was painful for her to have to call me. Do you have problems, is that why you've cut your ties with her?'

'You know my reputation,' he said. 'Flighty, unreliable. Wealthy parents. On previous experience it was bound to happen.'

'She thought it involved more than that, she said you were, uh, erratic.'

'That might have saved us, if she'd exploited it. I'm not demented, I'm blessed. With every passing minute 1 understand things more clearly and the more 1 discern the less important the parts become. 1 can focus on you, Herbert, if 1 concentrate hard.' He ran his hand along the actor's chest. 'There's nothing between us, except as friends. I'm not interested, 1 don't have any choice in the matter; 1 couldn't dictate to my emotions before and now they've shifted to other areas. Don't look at me like that; you've never maintained a steady relationship for long yourself.' The man protested that he would keep his feelings for him, whatever he might say, sneezed and turned his coat collar up. 'I want to know others are real; you and everyone else. I'm becoming close to another... being, and, consequently, 1 can see all of you. To continue may require removing all remaining impediments.'

The actor withdrew a silver hip flask from within his overcoat. 'Have a drink, it's Johnny Walker. 1 should offer you a tranquillizer, you fool. You were never prone to nonsense, what's happened to you? 1 can appreciate your leaving Naomi or me, even this lack of regret, but what's this thing you're so incredibly obsessed with, this realization that's made you believe you're unique?'

He did not answer; his occasional lover would dismiss any explanation that he gave. It was true that he was peculiar, but the hovering bird, with its bunched arms covered with dark, trailing feathers, had told him that there were other persons whose needs penetrated their sensory limits; it had spoken concisely through its long, curved beak. Giovanna had believed that his phantasm had meant that he was crazed; he knew that it was one of the rare touches of that enveloping lovingkindness upon its wellspring.

Herbert took a gurgling swig of whisky and commented on the foul weather, the freezing breeze and the chance of catching a cold after being weakened by exposure to the inclement conditions. He suggested that they travel to his brick veneer house in Reid and offered him accommodation if his goods were still at Naorni's residence.

He thanked Herbert for the choice but said that it was irrelevant; he would remain where he was. The grassbIades, uniformly short and identically patterned in starlike formations, were multitudinous and dry under and around him, and the air was balmy from the heat of the late afternoon. He had besotted this male, who remained fixated on him. What was it about him that drew others to him? He was not sure and had sometimes wondered whether the fascination of his partners for him would remain over more extended periods. Now he had attracted the attention of a force beyond human comprehension. 'Do you feel diminished by the large number of your lovers?' he asked Herbert. 'All those men; do liaisons mean increasingly less?'

The actor shook his head, bemused by the question, and gave the answer that he had expected; such relationships were not uncommon for a gay man in his thirties, and entailed a different type of commitment to that commonly involved in heterosexuality, one closer to friendship. They allowed a form of fulfilment more easily Without the incessant pressure of the possibility of a legally binding tie and children, affairs were more relaxed. This argument precluded any comparison between Herbert's position and his own. The physical nature of the man's passion did turn his emotions along certain paths, yet despite this the actor was searching for the same fundamentals as heterosexuals were; for an illustration of existence through the act of love. He had gained that demonstration on a grander scale, the certainty not conveyed through words of romance or the contact of lips but by a more direct sharing of the sensations, and therefore the composition, of others. The circumflex shapes above and the distant partition were communications and endearing caresses upon his burning flesh, which was merging with that greater presence. The boundaries of their separation were becoming indistinct and he wished that he could grasp more and not have to transform thoughts beyond him into objects and images in the casual world.

'Let's walk to the water,' he said to Herbert, grasping his hand, which was cold. The man resisted, complaining that he had not yet explained his views or his odd behaviour. 'It's pointless, you'd have to experience it, 1 can't possibly convey it. I'm not certain what 1 believe in.' The actor remained insistent so he attempted to comply with his request. 'I've been in contact with a wider force, I'm being amalgamated. Don't be shocked; that network's also being absorbed, though 1 affect it insignificantly.'

Herbert was silent and inclined his face downwards, indecisive, considering how he should react. The actor was not so much worrying for him as allowing a protective impulse to burgeon within him. He recognized the symptoms; the man's tone of voice became pacific and the core of his conversation reassuring. Standing upon the living carpet of greenery he had the impression that his feet were less substantial and that the surfaces of his shoulders and chest were being violently stretched in two directions: to the population and other less sentient beings within Canberra and the globe in a general and increasingly distanced way; and to that different place in terms of the specific centre of his identity At the edge of the vegetation was a metrewide cement path, squirted by runny, cream-toned faeces, long dried, followed by the surface of the lake. Near the land the liquid was turbid, filaments of aquamarine plant life suspended within it. Assertive ducks swam near them; they were coloured white, black and ashen and some moved quickly, pummelling against the fluid, while others were still or dipped their heads and necks beneath the surface of the freshwater in search of food. Herbert had shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets and appeared uncomfortable; his face was pale.

He was momentarily aware that the waves were formed in the shape of perfect pyramids, miniature in size, rotating in concert and rising and falling. He called out to his companion and stepped back from the artificial, contoured dam, disconcerted.

calm down or you'll find yourself being examined by a psychiatrist,' Herbert was saying. 'You may have come to dislike Canberra, you may have left your relationships behind, but you aren't capable of disappearing while you're in this muddled state. Why don't you let me mind you while you rest.'

'Is it possible for a person to change so drastically in a single day?' he asked. 'I can hear water swishing, but the lake doesn't ripple; identical patterns are turning, on its surface, bobbing, hundreds of thousands of them. 1 can't return to my previous life as if nothing's happened - as if these events aren't occurring.'

The actor tried to discover more about the meaning of his comments and questioned him about what he had witnessed and when he could see such things. He did not answer him and bent down, sitting on the dirty, jogger-trod concrete strip and dangling his feet over it, the soles of his shoes touching liquid and making faint splashing noises. He had made love to the man only two or three times and had not become close enough to him to be fully familiar with him; Herbert now believed that he was mentally unsound and he would not be able to convince him otherwise. He did not really need to do so; the man was no longer important in any immediate way. His inability to recognize any of his lovers as real had meant that none of them had remained crucial to his life; they had eventually become utterly like string puppets and meaningless to him. Herbert was tugging at his elbow

'Please, we must go. It'll be dark soon, you can't stay here at night. I can't let you, I'm responsible.'

'I'll be leaving soon,' he replied. 'I have to ask you to allow me my whims. Don't interfere, 1 don't care if you're well-intentioned or not.'

'I'd never hurt you, you're too important to me.' The actor scratched at his jugular vein. 'I'm still attached to you, whatever your callousness. I'll stay here until you decide to be sensible; 1 assume your car's nearby and you've at least enough money for a motel room. If you need anything of mine it's yours. You just have to slow down. If you find you're still feeling worried tomorrow contact me or Naomi, or a doctor. Let's be honest, you need to talk to someone properly'

'Alright.' The man subsided and he watched the birds paddle from the top of one pirouetting pentahedron of water, through the intervening air, to the next. Their elegant wings elongated and formed arms or legs, their lung-ballooned bodies swelled and fractal manes and pincushion combs appeared on their crowns. Through a radial, serrated bill the nearest one spoke, declaring that he would be borne away to another totality. Herbert was not displaying any curiosity, and he shut his eyelids and felt feathered fingers and feet touching his torso, arms and scalp; he experienced their sensations as they reached for him and simultaneously his own as he received their thistledown embraces. The buoyed ducks were now particles of a larger unity and the equivalent of the optic nerve of that presence; their actions, limited information, jumped back to the wholeness that was otherwise locked away from them. 'You're transmitters,' he murmured, and opened his eyes. The Sun was nearing the horizon, formed by the hills that surrounded the complex of wide, shallow valleys within which the city reposed, and Herbert, curious as to the significance of his utterance, watched him, anxious. He looked at his hands and pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and its wool cover; on his skin welts were gradually rising in the shapes of fingers and soles of feet and he felt similar intrusions on his face.

His companion was chattering, confused, asking him whether he would forsake his seat now and expressing his worry at the considerable depth of the water at the gust-slapped edge of the lake. Soon he would be released from his repressive confinement and the consideration brought neither trepidation nor anticipation but only a suffuse certainty.

'There are no rain clouds,' he said to the man; the former birds floated above the circling, flat sides of the bountiful waves. 'What you see's been changed, it reflects your opaque eyes, your rejection. Don't prattle, listen to me. I'll wander off in a minute, but 1 want you to know that when I was in pain 1 was like overcast weather; the fusing borders of my identity and that other's have affected you too, they've twisted your view' He poked the tip of one shoe against an aqueous protrusion, wetting it. His friend was assessing him, wondering whether he should fetch help, force him to come with him immediately or wait.

'Wait,' he said, frightening the actor. The boundary of knowledge that was present between the inhabitants of this universe and that extraneous entity was there for an explicit purpose; without that membrane they would merge with it, before their time, contaminating that field and annihilating themselves. It had sprung from other constellations: from living planets, gas-giants; from white dwarf ring-belts; from the quantum satellites of singularity; and from many divergent nodes. It was sufficient that it should have apprehension of their senses, their local areas. He had been the instigator of this lesser eddy of exertion; it was acting here only briefly and partially, the change manifest in the imposed detection of non-extant drizzle by those around him. Interaction had definitely changed him, as well.

He felt his sore feet dissolving as the Earth turned, hiding the incandescent Sun from view. Here was the answer to the question of why pain and suffering continued and hopelessness and the loneliness of apparent individuality were not ended; to preserve the purity of a more munificent charity. He could not remember his name, the anchor of his person; was it Julian, Lisa, Eunice, Chaim, Lucy or John? His uncouth clothes fell away from him and his elastic, aguish arms bristled with tiny spines and were covered with fluff and feathers. I-Am-That-I-Am, he thought, as his legs straddled the lake, merging into its substance, and he outreached the bony geography of his arms and floated away to the east, leaving behind his companion, the nestling capital and the soluble remnants of his prior existence. The avian messengers of grace flustered all around him as he rushed towards the steadfast barrier. He was about to pass over it, and once he had done so would never speak to this world again.

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