I started writing this short story almost half a year ago already. I intended it to be a writing practice for me, to just keep the creative juice flowing and the skills in check, so there's really no reason to rush.
My original plan was to play around the factual idea that everytime I walk around the City, I know there'll be a point that iL end up in Darling Harbour unconsciously. Odd but true. However, along the course of writing, I started throwing in things, people, places, and other odd stuffs that in one way or another have been memorable to me.
I have to be clear though that the story is fictional and in no way it has actually happened to me. Hindi pa ako gento katanga. Haha!
I enjoyed writing it! Time to dive in for another one.
*****
Darling Harbour courtesy of www.digitalcody.comRoads to Darling Harbourby O.B. Concepcion
19/2/08It was a chilling July winter in the suburb of Wollstonecraft and gusts of wind coming from the harbour shores only made the coldness worse. At least that was the case for a foreigner like me, who hailed from the tropics and has never felt winter until that day I was sent in Australia for a business trip.
“At least, it doesn’t snow here in Sydney,” my Kiwi colleague would always tell me.
That sounded quite reassuring, really. Although the telltale signs of my body hairs standing off of my skin and my teeth gritting involuntarily indicated otherwise. I was even beginning to wonder if the thermal jumper I’ve worn everyday could alleviate any cold at all. It was at least warmer in Sydney, where I went for work, so I just have to walk… no… stride from my flat to the City-ward train and I would feel a bit better for the rest of the day.
This particular day was uncannily different.
The Aussies would describe it as “flat out, like a lizard drinking” – an exaggeratedly busy day. And I would have stayed longer – even longer than what was usually “longer” for me – in the office, if I haven’t realized that I was missing my flat’s key! Hoping to get ahold of the flat keeper and wishing the old bloke got a duplicate, I bundied out of work and rushed into Sydney’s evening traffic, taking the only route I knew heading back to Wollstonecraft.
But it did not lead me anywhere close. I have a mental note of the names of streets and images of familiar turns and landmarks along the way and made sure – everyday! - that I religiously followed these indicators back to my flat. That day, for reasons that totally escaped me, I was led to a downtown pedestrian precinct overlooking a contemporary marina instead. The place made me feel uneasy (or was it the increasing chill?). The concrete pavements toward the marina complex were lined up with lampposts that cast off a pale yellowish hue. Along with the dots of light from the urban skyline across the inlet, the place exuded a hauntingly romantic appeal. I suddenly missed my home back in the tropics.
I stirred myself out of reverie. I have a flat keeper to catch and he often retires early to bed each night. So, not bothering to enter the marina, I turned around and retraced my way back to the last “indicator” that I remembered seeing, briefly noting an arrow-shaped billboard hanging on a fence that pointed back to where I just came from. It read “Darling Harbour”.
Half-walking, half-jogging, I tried my best to navigate from the bustling city, hopping from busses to busses with only a series of bus numbers and corresponding schedules stored in the “Notepad” application of my mobile phone as guide. In what was supposed to be my last stop, I got off at a well lit avenue with lots – well, hoardes! – of people walking to and fro; most of them, as apparent from their sleek business coats, has just came off their offices too. I threw myself into the fray and squeezed myself through the tight pack of pedestrians who were mostly hurrying themselves home.
I never heard that rush hours in Wollstonecraft could get this… this… bloody, I thought to myself with a shrug.
I looked around and noticed a huge banner on top of a petrol station on the other side of the road. It was a tourism advertisement for a skiing trip to the Snowy Mountains and its “breathtaking views of Mount Kosciusko, Australia’s tallest peak”. An odd feeling immediately took over me before I realized that I was completely unfamiliar with this part of the suburb.
“I think I’m lost.”
I never realized I’ve spoken my thoughts aloud until a wiry bloke in a backcombed hairdo overheard me and said, “Excuse me?”
He looked approachable enough so I thought better to ask if he happened to know the directions to the street where my flat was in which he immediately (and confidently) answered, “Try Wollstonecraft, mate. Lob in and I’m sure your street’s in there.”
“In Wollstonecraft?” I reiterated with a wrinkled forehead.
The guy nodded then headed his way, probably not hearing the “thanks” I mumbled. Then, it fell into place. I am not in Wollstonecraft. It was immediately confirmed when I asked a random passer-by that indeed I was nowhere near my place and in fact, I was still in the City!
Having lost a hell lot in my life, I knew better than to panic. I edged my way to a less crowded corner (without wearing an “I AM LOST” look in my face) and carefully assessed the surrounding. I should have been more composed but Fate just has to make things more complicated. I pocketed a hand and discovered that my bus ticket was also missing! Asking around for directions, I finally was able to walk my way to a part of the City that was more familiar to me. From there, I wandered around interlaced side streets until I was able to reach the district’s main highway. The walk was fairly winding but I was used to it. It was just that my stomach was starting to grumble in protest.
All thoughts of stopping for dinner was abruptly cut short when I arrived at a small connecting bridge way. However, it was not the paved bridge’s simplistic engineering or the ornate bushes around it that caught my attention. It was the familiar façade of a romantic skyline in the background of a peaceful inlet. It was Darling Harbour… again. Crossing the bridge way would lead me to a commercial arcade lined with souvenir shops and convenient stores. Further down towards the marina was the path lined with lampposts.
It was almost tempting to get in and rest for a while but with a day as bonkers as I had, I’d rather see the night over as quickly as I could. So without even proceeding past the bridge way, I turned back and carefully picked out the more recognizable roads.
I later ended up on the subway station of a busy hub in George Avenue. Usually, I do not take train rides during rush hours. They were cramped and crowded to the doors. That night, it was way past rush hour and people were thinning out. Most were already in their homes, warm and full to the guts. I busied myself from that envying thought by looking at a huge tarp by the other side of the waiting platform advertising “an adventurous bushwalking in the majestic Blue Mountains of West Sydney”. It was abruptly blocked off from my view when the northbound train cut through. It was time to board.
A couple of minutes later, I get off a station where a huge signage sat by an overhang. It read “Wollstonecraft”. How I wished I could see the smile on my face right at that moment! I quickly hop out into an all-too-familiar thoroughfare. It might be too late to catch up with the flat keeper but it pays to give a chance so I trotted my way home, picking turns and side streets I regularly saw everyday. Oddly, the streets suddenly kept on getting more unfamiliar as I went on my way. It was as if a whole slew of new houses were built that day on this side of the scrub just to confuse me!
Anxiety turned into despair. Trot turned into a sprint. I already barely could recall the places I was seeing around me and even lost my train ticket in the process. I whinged to myself, cursing the state I was in. After what seemed to be a few minutes later, I stopped… resigned to the fact that I was, again, lost. Noticing that that part of Wollstonecraft was a bit busier than most parts of the suburb did not abate the churning inside my gut. Something was surely amiss. I tried to be nonchalant about it but when I saw this Chinese guy closing a lolly store several blocks away, I immediately knew where I was and I have every bloody reason to freak out. Definitely, I was still not in Wollstonecraft!
I’ve crossed that same avenue just hours ago when that guy was still out offering free sweets to by passers. Right away, I hurried towards an adjacent corner to confirm what I already knew. On a fence was the arrow-shaped “Darling Harbour” billboard pointer that I saw earlier that night. I was still in the City and worse, back in Darling Harbour. From that vantage, I can already see in the distance the sparkling reflection of the evening skyline on the dockside inlet.
A flittering banner on the walls of a nearby chemist shop showed pictures of Cottage Point and its “enjoyable fishing amenities” but the word “fish” struck me most… made me crave. It was already several hours past my usual dinner time. As much as I wanted to think about anything other than going home, the bizarre fact that I could not even find my way back was enough not to worry about my already complaining stomach.
Snakey and hungry and whacked, my stubbornness got the better of me and just to plainly vent everything out, I ran as fast as I could. With no place in particular to go, I only wanted to flee away from the general direction of Darling Harbour… away from hunger and the biting cold, away from exhaustion and confusion. On and on and on, until I finally could not; and so, I stopped.
Alas, my stomach is wanting and I’m hungry.
Alas, I can barely move my legs and they’re still freezing some more.
Alas, I’m too tired and there is no sign that I can rest anytime soon.
Alas, it’s hard to think logically anymore and I am still lost.I looked up, panting. I’ve ran several hundred metres already but the sight of the surroundings drained me of whatever was left of my energy. A tanned man in green and white hoodie might have noticed the dispirited look in my face as he passed by. I recalled him asking worriedly, “You ol’right, mate?” I knew I baffled – might have even scared – the bloke because I did not pay any attention.
Instead, I just slumped into a concrete slope and stared past the bridge way in front of me and into the glinting reflections on the calm water from afar. Even closer were the lined up lampposts, there as witnesses to things that were still unexplained as if taunting me with every flicker of their pale glow. The now-closed convenient stores and arcade centres; the trickle of people wandering around the docks… on that day alone, I’ve been well familiarized with the place already.
Darling Harbour.
Relinquishing to the fact that Fate put the mockers on me and inculcating in me that all roads lead to Darling Harbour, I just let it be. That and the fact that I was sure I’d never get to the flat keeper in time and I was hungry and cold and dead tired anyway, I just let it be.
I slogged into the marina for the first time that night and having been freed from immediate worries – maybe aside from the probability that I would be sleeping on the dark, cold corners of that place soon – I got to enjoy the sceneries and the inherent relaxing nature of the place. I stood by the edge of the wooden docks, fixing on the immediate horizon. Tired from the day’s ratty incidents to even think about anything, I just cleared my mind and closed my eyes and felt the sea breeze gently lapping around me albeit chilling. What seemed earlier as despair became serenity, became bliss. I savoured every minute of carefreeness and thought,
so this is how it feels to be… free?
And when finally I opened my eyes after what seemed to be eternity, right there in front of me was a wrap of grilled jumbuck meat over a thick and neatly folded parka. Jutting right out of the parka’s woolen hood was a train ticket for Wollstonecraft, a bus ticket good for a single ride and to top it all… my flat’s key.
*****
Glossary of OZ Terms (in order of appearance):
Kiwi - someone from New Zealand
jumper - sweaters
Aussies - Australians
bloke - man
bundy - to record a work period on a bundy
precinct - a special part of town
petrol station - gas station
lob in - to arrive in; go to
mate - friend
bonkers - crazy
scrub - remote place
whinge - complain
lolly - sweets; candy
chemist - pharmacist
snakey - not in a good mood
whacked - very tired
hoodie - hooded jacket
put the mockers on - cast a bad luck
ratty - odd; peculiar
jumbuck - sheep
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