Overheard and my favourite photo

Overheard on the train platform this morning was a group of teenagers in school uniform:

"They should just stop stereotyping us!"

"Yes! I know! All adults do it though."

You can't write dialogue like that.

*****

I'm rather pleased with this photograph I took on Sunday morning at Brunetti's in Carlton. I braved the crowds to buy a cafe latte to take with me when I went to see "The Broken Circle Breakdown" at the Nova.  The film is a curiosity (it's set in Belgium and the main characters are bluegrass musicians) and I really liked it. The coffee was good too.

Brunetti's, Carlton, Sunday morning
© 2014 divacultura

It is miraculous that I could get a clear shot. The place was packed!

Off to have my water tested!

Sitting opposite me on the train to Flinders Street this morning was an old man. Beside him sat an old woman wearing rose tinted sunglasses, gazing out the window and clutching her handbag on her lap. The man turned his head fully towards her as he spoke very loudly.


"I'VE GOT TO GO BACK TO THE DOC. BUT BEFORE I DO HE SAYS THEY'VE GOT TO TEST MY BLOOD AND MY WATER!"

The woman continued to gaze out the window, but nodded, barely.

"SO I'M ON MY WAY TO HAVE MY WATER TESTED."

...

"I DRANK THREE BIG GLASSES OF WATER BEFORE I LEFT HOME. DO YOU THINK THAT'LL BE ENOUGH? THEY SAID THAT I'LL HAVE TO DO MY WATER ON THE SPOT. I THOUGHT I'D BETTER DRINK ENOUGH SO I'LL BE ABLE TO GO. DO YOU THINK I'LL BE ABLE TO?"

Quietly, the woman said: "Yes. That should be fine."

"I SUPPOSE YOU'RE RIGHT. I SHOULD BE READY TO GO TO THE TOILET WHEN I GET THERE...LUCKY I DON'T NEED TO GO YET. THAT WOULD BE A WASTE."

The train passed the big Melbourne viewing wheel and the woman said, sotto voce: "Adrian took his new girlfriend up there on a date."

"WHAT?"

"I said Adrian - you know Adrian - took his girlfriend up on the wheel last week. They were on a date, you know," she repeated. I wondered what the relationship between the two of them was. Was she planting a seed, secretly hoping she would be taken on a wheel date? Was she secretly in love with the enigmatic Adrian and ready to push the other woman off the wheel at the first opportunity?

'WHAT DO YOU DO UP THERE? ISN'T IT CRACKED? WHAT KIND OF A DATE IS THAT?"

"What?"

"THE WHEEL! IT'S CRACKED YOU KNOW!"

"Not anymore. It's not cracked anymore."

The woman stood up to leave the train at Southern Cross Station, leaving the man to travel solo on his way to deposit his water for testing.

What was she saying - eavesdropping on the tram today

Travelling on the tram today I took a seat opposite two old Chinese women.  They were travelling backwards in a bank of four seats and they both looked at me briefly when I sat down. They looked to be in their sixties or seventies.

The one on my left, nearest the window, was talking at the other woman in her language.  I had no idea what she was saying, but it soon became apparent that she wasn't being very nice to the other woman.

The other woman, the one on my right, was angled away from the other. She was wearing a white cotton hat with an elastic strap under her chin, her tartan bomber jacket was zipped to just below the strap.  Her eyes were focussed on the scenery passing by the opposite window.

All the while the woman doing the talking kept her stream of chatter up.  She would look at the other woman occasionally but keep talking as she looked away.  Her facial expression was hard to read, but her eyes showed her displeasure.

She would pause in between pronouncements, almost as if she was gathering her thoughts for the next part.  She clearly wanted a response from the other woman, but she wasn't getting it.

As this continued, neither of the women looked at me, so I could study them in detail without them becoming self-conscious.

The "victim" was slowly angling her body so that she had her back to the other woman, yet still the talk continued.  She never once turned her head.  Such discipline.

At one point, it became too much for the victim.  She raised the hand closest to the other woman and waved it in front her own ear - as if she was swatting an annoying mosquito - while shaking her head.  She said something back.  From reading the situation I believe she was saying, "Enough! Just be quiet!  Enough!"

This silenced the woman who sat with a grim look on her face, lips pursed, but mind clearing putting together her next speech.  It didn't take long before the talker started muttering under her breath again.

I wonder what was being said.

Were they fighting about how to care for their ageing parents?  The bathroom cleaning roster? The gambling addiction?  The toy boy acquired by the victim and coveted by the talker? The fact that the victim bought the wrong brand of breakfast cereal? Had backed over the cat in the driveway that morning and now they were travelling on a tram? The latest art installation that had resulted in a wing of the house being trashed and the carpet left with a smell that was never going to move?  Or the birthday voucher for botox that the victim had given to the talker? Had the top secret cloning project they'd been secretly conducting on behalf of a foreign power been ruined in a moment's distraction...?

I don't speak Cantonese, so we'll never know.

After I'm gone - what to do with my remains.

Crammed on a tram today, the group of youths pressed behind me started discussing what they wanted to be done with their remains after death.

"I want to be cremated."

"No, I want to be stuffed.  Put me in the attack pose so I can continue to intimidate people after death."

Looking at the thin pasty youth who uttered these words, I struggled to imagine him intimidating anyone in life, let alone in death.

"I want to be cremated and then turned into something useful....like...cat litter! Yeah, cat litter."

"No I want to be turned into a diamond."  This was the girl in the group.

"A diamond?" scoffed one of the males.  "Who's going to spend the money to turn you into a diamond?"  I could hear the snarl on his lips, the squint in his eye, the shake of his head as he said this.

The girl was silent.  They're probably in love with each other.  Secretly.  Her heart just broke.  Luckily, death from old age appeared to be a long way off.  I don't think they'll make it as a couple - there is too big a distance between cat litter and diamonds.

"I know, cremate me and then put me in a snow globe!"

"That wouldn't work."

"Because it's grey?  You can have a grey snow globe.  It could be a souvenir of somewhere really polluted."

" No!  You wouldn't be fine enough to go in a snowglobe."  This boy's name was Jeremy.  He was the ugly pompous one.

"What do you mean?  I'm fine!"  This was the boy with the cough and the dripping nose.

"No, I mean, have you ever seen ashes?  They're not small particles like in a snow globe.  They're more like wood chips  You wouldn't be fine enough."

"Yeah, but everyone's different," said the girl, the peacemaker in the group.

And then she said, "I spilt my grandmother's ashes once."

The group was silent for a while.

"If I'm not fine enough, you could put me in a pepper grinder."

This was rewarded with raucous laughter.

"Imagine that!  Do you want pepper? And you offer them the grinder and they take it and they put pepper all over their dinner and then at the end you tell them they just ate granddad!!"

More laughter.

"How about an hour glass?  That would be cool."

"No, the particles are too big."

"Well put me in a big hourglass.  People could come and consult me, like an oracle.  I could tell them everything to do."

"Wouldn't you need to be on a pedestal to do that?  Maybe that's what you could be if you were stuffed.  But don't do that in the attack pose."

Then Jeremy says:  "I've got it!  Make me into maracas!  I could just make music for the rest of my life! Yes!  MARACAS!"

I love eavesdropping on public transport.  Especially when it's a quirky conversation like this one.  What did you overhear today? Ever thought about what you want done with your remains?

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY & YOU GET THE GIFTS!
As I contemplate renewing my commitment to divacultura for another year, I feel excitement and affection.  Thank you for sharing some of your time with me. As a thank you gift - and so I can gain a better sense of who's out there - I'll be giving away a pair of my hand knitted socks to two very lucky readers, where ever you are in the world (ie two readers will receive a pair of socks each).  To be in the running, leave a comment on this post by Friday 17 August 2012, stating why you like reading divacultura. My favourite responses will receive the prize (my decision is final).  Why not take the opportunity to sign up and follow too!

Man on the train (language warning)

The young man was noticeable as he circled the platform.  He had the energy of a fighter - up on his toes, tightly wound, watchful.  Something in his body told the world that he was ready. If he needed to be.

He stood in front of me as the train pulled into the station and didn't budge from his spot, forcing the people getting off to change trajectory.  He said nothing.  It just seemed better to not be in his way.  There was much confusion as people on the train realised that the ultimate destination had changed just as we started to climb on board.  Eventually I made a general announcement to everyone about where I understood the train to be going.  It was more efficient than being asked a dozen times.  It was clear that I had unwittingly been designated as Chief Information Officer for today in keeping with my propensity to be one of those people.  At least the fourth carriage from the front was well informed.

The young man took his seat in a bank of four, immediately stretching out and putting his feet up on the seat opposite.  Although he was slouched as much as a human can slouch, he claimed his space and no one else sat in that bank of four.

The carriage was quiet.  People were reading, playing with their phones, doing the puzzles in the newspaper or listening to their ipods.  Some were staring straight ahead, probably contemplating the day they'd just had or the evening that lay before them.  Into this contemplation the young man dropped his domestic drama as it played out over the phone lines.

"What do you mean the council came around?"
...
"What do you mean they've fined me?"
...
"What do you mean they knocked on the window?"
...
"What do you mean they want to see me?"
...
"What do you mean when will I be home?  I'll be home soon.  I'll deal with it then."
...
"What do I have to clean up?"
...
"Who says?"
...
"I don't believe you Mum."
...
"You will not slash my tyres.  I'll slash your tyres.  Then you won't be able to go anywhere."
...
"Fuckin' council workers.  Cunts.  What do they do anyway? Drive around in cars all day. Maybe I'll slash their tyres."
...
"I'll be home soon."

I'm sure his mother would be eagerly awaiting his return.

He made another call.

"Hey mate.  Do people from the council fine you if there's mud in your gutter?"
...
"Mum! She told me they knocked on the window of the house and everything! She's such a liar. She just told me that to get me to clean it up."
...
"Out the front. Of the house. In the gutter."
...
"I know. It's shit man."

In the course of the eleven minutes we shared the train carriage, he made six more phone calls and repeated this investigation.  He was obviously unaware of the amplification powers of modern telephonic devices and felt it necessary to shout to be heard.  His mother seemed quite creative in her deceit to get her son to complete a domestic chore, but she also underestimated her son's powers of investigation.

The woman sitting opposite me told me she had encountered him before in the streets of her suburb.  She questioned whether he was "all there".  She said she had seen him pulling roses off bushes in gardens and throwing the petals up in the air as he skipped through their rain.

I tried to picture the man with his pugnacious attitude revelling in the scattered petals.  It was hard to conjure, but I was not prepared to take this image to mean he was somehow mentally deficient.  Perhaps he just liked to stop and smell the roses.