On Love, In Sadness

A park bench
Occupied by a man with no name,
Who wishes to sleep soundly
Through the night,
Sits lifeless in the dark.

The chipped paint,
The broken wood,
The legs almost bent.
This is a bed so familiar to him.

But never in one place
Does this man sleep
For a park bench looks the same
Over here,
Over there.

Sometimes he can’t sleep,
But not because its too cold
Or too uncomfortable.
Sometimes he can’t sleep,
Because his view of the world
Is so different from ours.

As the day breaks
And the people move around him
He is woken
And told to leave.
He doesn’t argue,
He moves on. 

Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey - He’s definitely a mad man with a box

It’s not often you come across somebody who has never wished for the ability to time travel – whether it’s to see their future, or visit an important historical event from the past – at some point in your life, time travel seems like the most incredible thing anyone could ever achieve.

So, if one day, a man with a big blue police box dropped from the sky and asked you to explore all of time and space with him, what would you say. 

Everybody knows the story, but just in case, here’s a recap:

The Doctor Who series first started in 1963, and, currently in it’s 32nd season with 776 episodes and a movie, holds the record for the longest running sci-fi television show ever.

What makes the show so unique is that the The Doctor, being a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, is able to regenerate himself – this means that with every regeneration comes a new actor in the hot seat, and a never-ending timeline of Time Lords.

The Doctor and his TARDIS have forever been there to save the Earth from dreaded aliens like Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels and sometimes even himself. With a companion fighting by his side in every episode, we are constantly drawn in to the darkly charismatic personality of this wonderfully spectacular Gallifreyan and the haunting past that is always trying to catch up with him. 

But what does Doctor Who have to with time travel?

Well, the Doctor has this big blue police box called the TARDIS (it stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space) which basically means the Doctor and his companion can fly to any time, on any planet, in any galaxy in the Universe – and that’s where things can get tricky. 

You see, over time, the means through which people time travel has changed - From Marty McFly and his DeLorean, the Doctor and his TARDIS, to Donnie Darko’s wormhole and even Austin Powers in his 1960s Volkswagen – time and technology have let us explore the endless possibilities of time travel to create stories that go beyond our wildest dreams.

But this means there are usually a lot of rules associated with the possibility of time travel – and Doctor Who tends to break those rules. A lot. 

The very first example of time travel being accomplished with the help of a machine, was in H.G Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) – the novella introduced the world to the idea of a ‘time machine,’ - the term itself created by Wells – and was the story that would inspire a whirlwind of time travel stories and concepts over time.  

Since then, we have seen plenty of people try and do time travel, but with so many paradoxes and time theories, a lot of the time people are either left confused, or disproving the attempt at trying to make time travel plausible.

Doctor Carey Freeth from the University of Wollongong says, “I first watched Doctor Who and the TARDIS (first episode, An Unearthly Child,) when I was at high school in the late 60’s.”

“This [Doctor Who] along with many other similar programs like Star Trek, and films,” he says, “have been around for so long that they becomes part of our psyche, and makes the idea of time travel real or plausible now or most likely something we will be able to do in the near future.”

So what works? And why is time travel still such a huge phenomenon in modern pop culture?

Next to the DeLorean, the TARDIS is perhaps one of the most famous and well-recognised time machines in pop-culture history.

Since the shows inception Doctor Who has been stretching the rules and breaking the boundaries of time travel – it has explored the idea of paradoxical universes, major events like Pompeii, where the Doctor is put in a position where he has to let the people of Pompeii die, because “it’s an established part of history,” – but head writer for the series, Steven Moffat, says that time travel isn’t the number one factor, or purpose, of Doctor Who

“I think there’s a danger of having too much time travel,” he says.  “On the other hand, it’s a show about a time-traveller and that’s kind of fun. But me popping up once a year and doing a story that’s centered a bit more on time travel is different from me popping up six times a year and doing the same thing. You wouldn’t want to do it all the time.” 

“At the same time, an underlying strand of Doctor Who is that he is a time traveller and his companions, as passengers on the same vehicle, have an odd relationship with time, because it’s not passing in the same way for them.”

“I think it would be strange not to foreground that, or at any rate not to make it a strand of the story when uniquely, your entire regular cast don’t just have a time machine, they live in it. It’s a very different kind of thing.”

In popular culture, most stories revolve around The Butterfly Effect and Chaos Theory – the basic idea that one minor change in the past, could effect something major in the present – the science of these theories is a lot more complex, but the novelty has always been something very present in popular culture.

The 1985 film Back to the Future is probably the best-known example of the Butterfly Effect theory – in this film we see protagonist Marty McFly go back in time to 1955 where he accidentally stops his parents from meeting. This, of course causes changes in Marty’s future, and he has to fix things before he and his siblings disappear forever.

While the Butterfly Effect and Chaos theory are not strictly related to time travel, the basic ideas are held rife in popular culture examples – perhaps creating a better understanding of time travel for the lay person.

So where does the Doctor fit in to all of this? Well, throughout the years we’ve seen the Doctor being forced to let history take it’s natural path, so as to not damage the future on Earth where his companions come from – events like Pompeii, mentioned earlier, the disappearance of Agatha Christie, and other historically accurate events have been left as they are because ‘time cannot be re-written.’

In the Doctor Who episode Blink, the tenth Doctor (David Tennant) remarks that, “people assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually—from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint—it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey… stuff.” Which probably isn’t that helpful, but it explains a lot in relation to the episode.

Time isn’t set in stone, basically, and that cause and effect have an absolute hold on the world, but, time, in all it’s wibbly-wobbly-ness, can be changed, if we’re very careful, and not changing history.

So this throws our butterfly effect theory out the window for a moment.

The latest series of Doctor Who seems to have travelled down a path that says that one person’s complete timeline in fact can be re-written – and this has had some people confused about where Doctor Who stands in the whole time travel debate.

While popular culture tends to take a lot of the solidified science out of time travel, there are a lot of people who take it very seriously, and some who know the science behind the stories, but love it anyway.

 “It is my belief from what I know of physics,” says Doctor Freeth, “that time travel and also particles or machines that can go faster than the speed of light will never be possible. Other than these two, perhaps everything else is possible!” 

The Queen from the dark-side up

“We’re like a wind-up doll caught in the eye of a hurricane - unique, and definitely unlike anything else.”

It’s Thursday night in the city of Sydney and steam is rising from the gutters outside Club 77. There are at least fifty pairs of Dr Martens stomping in puddles, waiting to get out of the rain.

Backstage, while the support band rips through their set, a woman with cherry lips and piercing green eyes puffs on a cigarette while bopping her head along to the music.

“Society pressures everyone to have a 9-5 job, 2.3 children, a happy marriage and a house. What I have is an 11am to 2am job, 4 husbands, a touring van and 2 children – one is called Rock and the other, Roll…”

Magdalena, or, ‘Mzzy’ as she prefers to be called, is this green-eyed, cherry-lipped, heavily tattooed singer from ‘Gothabilly’ Sydney band Mz Ann Thropik.

With her band of merry men travelling from pub to pub for almost ten years, Mzzy is a well-known face in the underground music circuit – with thousands of fans both here and overseas, she is the Queen of the Australian alternative scene; and she has worked hard to earn such a title.

“I worked at the Brisbane radio station 4ZzZ fm as a broadcaster at 15, and did that for about five years,” she says. “After that I moved to Sydney and I was in an abusive relationship for about a year.

“I bought a guitar from a 2nd hand shop, re-strung it to suit my left handedness and started writing songs to get me through my tough time.

“I started Mz Ann Thropik once I’d written a number of songs and here I am eight years later, still loving every second of it!”

Mz Ann Thropik are the number one unsigned alternative, gothic and punk band on Myspace in Australia and were finally able to release their debut album S.O.S in February 2009.

According to Magdalena, the band have been working hard for several years to get to this point and have just put out an official video for their latest single Rule of Three.

“In a nut-shell it’s about society’s expectations on us all living up to the daily grind rather than following our personal dreams. Force feeding us products we apparently need to be beautiful and slim and normal. It’s about creating a stand against that bullshit and being who you want to be.

“The best part of making the video is that we’re doing it on absolutely no budget, yet somehow we’ve managed to pull together a crew of about 30 wonderful people from a film background to help us out.”

Touring with some of the biggest names in Australian local music, and supporting overseas acts such as The Birthday Massacre and more recently, being asked to fill in as last minute support for Swedish band HIM (to which Magdalena announced “of course Mz Ann can deliver!”) - Mz Ann Thropik have been given a taste of the rockstar life, and are ready to take over the world.

“Touring the whole world has always been something on the cards for us. 2010 seems like the perfect year for us to finally get up and do it,” she exclaims.

“We are currently working with a booking agent in London on the tours and trying to raise money through gigs and selling our albums and t-shirts. But that’s all we can reveal for now.”

Magdalena is like a beautifully dark hurricane on stage - dangerous, powerful and stunning to look at. Always caressing the microphone and climbing up stacks of amps – she has magnificent stage presence - her voice and her look are dark and sultry like a rebel gothic pinup.

One person who gets up close and personal with the band on a regular basis is photographer Sophia Tsipidis who has been working with Magdalena and the band for almost 3 years.

“When taking photos live, Magdalena and [bassist] Brad are the most aware of my camera and always try to produce a killer photo by somewhat posing and pulling a face,” she says.

”Magdalena is such an amazing person to shoot – her look is so dark and different, and her vocals are killer. There is never a gig where she doesn’t ‘wow’ me. She is absolutely stunning.

“I got turned into a dirty slave girl for their film clip Rule of Three, but Magdalena… Let’s just say I don’t think many people could pull off leather corsets, dog chains and whips.”

Despite a few line-up changes over the past couple of years, Magdalena seems to have found her perfect band, and they sound as good as ever.

“Eight years ago I never imagined still doing this,” she admits. “But now I can’t imagine not doing it. Regardless of what goes on in the band when it comes to band members Brad and I will always write music together for Mz Ann Thropik.”

The lights go down as Mz Ann Thropik finish their first song. The crowd are roaring. Magdalena screams the last few words, and they sum her up perfectly -

“I wear my crown, I shut the door and I shut your mouth, then I spit you out / I’m the Queen from the dark-side up / And I spit you out”

Are We There Yet?

This short story is based on the poem ‘Postcard’ by Peter Skrzynecki.
I wrote it in year 11 as a creative writing exercise my teacher gave me.

_____________________

After a lifetime of searching, do we ever really find our lives complete?

As we grow up, and grow older, are we meant to have found something?

Growing up, I had a good life. I got along with my parents, I was well educated and not once had I experienced something quite as horrific as war.

My parents always told me stories of the city they used to live in, the places they visited and the hardships they had faced. My father always told me “the only way you can counter being knocked down, is getting straight back up” – I always took his advice, because I knew, one day, it would help. He always looked out for me, everyday I would listen to his deep, heavily accented voice. My mother, the same. Her face always comforted me, her voice, soothing, soft but concerned.

I only ever had one problem with their stories, I always felt as if there was a void inside me, and no matter how hard I tried to fill it, it was always there.

It was a Sunday morning when I received the postcard, I remember waking up and finding my parents out for the day. They’d left a note.

It was sent by an old friend of my parents, I’d recognised his name from old photographs and letters my parents had shown me.

I didn’t take much notice of the image on the front, I was far too eager to read it. The whole thing was written in polish, so I was able to decipher briefly what it said; something about how he missed us all, and even though he’d never met me, felt he knew so much about me from the letters sent back and fourth over the years. I thought about showing it to my parents, as a momentum of the old town. I noticed some tiny writing towards the corner of the card, something, I feel, he did not want me to notice. What it said, still sends that cold chill down my spine. “To nie jest ten sam” – it’s not the same.

I flipped it over, and found myself staring right into the image, Warsaw: Panorama of the old town. Warsaw. A place I had never been, but feared to hear any more about.

The picture was too perfect to be completely real. The sky, so blue, it almost looked plastic. Red buses on a bridge and a park near a river. It all looked so pretend.

I’m still not sure whether I thought it, or said it out loud, but I remember what I said. – ‘I never knew you, I will never know you.’

I paced up and down the room. I stopped and looked once again at the image. ‘Red buses. I’ve seen red buses before. I see red buses all the time’. They meant nothing to me, but to my parents, they could mean the world.

War, bombs and massacres thousands of dying, dead and wounded people, images that I was old enough to imagine were racing through my head. Was I supposed to feel so bad, so guilty? I felt torn between a past I have never know and a future I wasn’t even sure about.

At that moment, I thought of my parents and how they would react at the sight of the postcard. I wondered, would my mother cry? Would my father laugh and speak of all the good times they had? The bad, perhaps? All I knew at that moment was that I didn’t want to be caught anymore, I did not want to be stuck between a culture I hardly knew, and one that I had grown up with.

Growing up is hard. You learn so much about yourself and the things and people around you. I still have the postcard. I kept it hidden for a long time. Every now and then I stare back into the image and try to see myself there. I still can’t. But I know that one day, I will be sending a postcard just like this to a friend or relative.

Every now and then I think about my life and how much I’ve learnt from it. But I still question…are we there yet? Are our lives ever really fulfilled, do we ever feel complete.

I am yet to find out.

Strangers on a Train

He told me one last story. He used his age ruined voice like an old mans hand to pick the lock on his past. Five stops to go.

Every now and then I would look into his faded blue eyes, and could feel the intensity of his gaze as my eyes drifted towards the window, looking through its etchings and scribble at the array of buildings and trees as they rushed past.

I wasn’t sure if these stories had been told before, but he told them like they only happened days, even hours beforehand. His voice seemed to boom across the empty carriage, but never echoed. I listened intensely, and held on to every word as though it was the most exciting thing I’ve ever heard. Maybe it was. Four stops.

This story was the hardest one to tell, but he told it with so much passion, so much detail and he never stumbled on a word. As I listened, the doors opened, and I took no notice of the people who flooded the carriage. It was hard to turn away. It was so hard to listen to anything other than him. This man was sharing his story, his life, with me.

I thought for a moment and wondered how hard it would be for me to share this with a stranger. But then I realised that maybe, just maybe, he wanted someone to know.

As the carriage rumbled and passed through a tunnel, the lights flickered, causing panic among some passengers but he didn’t seem to notice. The lights flickered off as we continued through the tunnel and only small sharp flashes of light passed through. This darkness brought an aching to his voice, as he scratched deeper into his past, and further into my mind.

As the light at the end of the tunnel crept towards us I noticed him smile, only slightly, but a smile nonetheless. Three stops.

As he spoke, I could feel myself starting to wonder if I knew this story, but had never been told it before. I almost felt as if it had happened to me, but how, how could something so personal have ever happened to someone else? At one stage, his eyes met mine, and held for what seemed an eternity. I felt as if he knew me. His eyes, sharp, yet I could not look away. His words sank deeper in to my mind, painful, bitter, and angry memories had been reclaimed by this simple tale. Still, I could not even force myself to stop listening.

I found my eyes drifting from his face, down to his hands. They looked worn, like they had worked a lifetime. They fidgeted, thumbs twirling, then rested, fingers intertwined on his lap. As he spoke, he slowly lifted his head, and looked out the window. He seemed to be reminiscing. I noticed his face. Soft, but worn. Old.  I knew nothing about this man physically, no age, no name. But I knew him. I knew he had fought, I knew he had cried, I knew he had loved and I knew, he had been happy. Once.

Two stops.

I felt myself becoming more intrigued. He spoke as if he knew me. His words etching themselves in my mind like the graffiti on the windows. I could not remember when or where these things had happened, or if they’d happened at all.

As we approached the end of another tunnel, light flooded the carriage, giving everything, and everyone an odd, soft glow. I breathed in, and noticed a faint smell of stale cologne, setting a mood in myself I hoped would pass.

One stop.

As I felt the train slowing down, his story came to an end. He looked at me, those soft, faded blue eyes sinking. Once again he smiled, awkwardly. It was a sad smile, but seemed to have a hidden quirk behind it. He sighed, and placed something in my hand, thanking me for listening to him, for really listening.

I smiled and stood up. Said goodbye, and knew that I would never meet this man again.

As the door opened, I stepped on to the platform, thinking about what he had told me, not realizing that I was yet to look at what he had placed in my hand. As I reached the stairs, I opened my hand. I stopped, stared deeply into the object and remembered.

This man did know me. He knew me longer than I knew myself.

I turned around just as the train pulled out of the station. I looked into the carriage.

The seat was empty.