Cydonia - One

One
We’d stood on Ayres Rock the day before last, or Uluru as we’re now calling it. Not supposed to climb it someone had told us, an Englishman in a camp site with long dirty hair and a skinny-pretty girlfriend from Holland with bony little toes and painted black nails. Would you climb on a cathedral, he asked before turning back to the kiwi he was peeling with a Swiss Army Knife? She was already eating hers, nodding and slurping it down like caviar, blasé she screamed in silence. What a couple. Let us drown in your sophisticated quicksand and be reborn as beautiful as you.

So we climbed it. Under a million burning suns we crawled to the top of that ancient rock and stood atop its peak like Cydonian trespassers. We could see forever, an unending landscape of red under a heavy blanket of cloudless blue. And all the time the great fire above burned our skin, cooking us stealthily like pink sausages for the wild dogs below. We took photographs because we had to, filling our viewfinders with nothing but dust and haze. We snapped each other, group shots and solo, smiling through sunburn and mosquito repellent, ten thousand miles from home on the top of everything. And then we crawled back down because we didn’t belong there. I stole a loose rock from the cathedral before we reached the ground, worrying those ancient black gods were watching, waiting to curse me.

When we got back to the campsite in Alice Springs Kiwi and Bones were gone, off into the red, replaced by others. We ate pasta and watched TV before climbing into the back of the van to sleep, all three of us lying there like stiff backed corpses on yellow foam. As always, I took the middle, toes on either side as I struggled to sleep amidst the sound of snoring and insects. But eventually I drifted, sliding gently into an unwelcoming vista of thick, grain laced air.

And now I am awake, sweating in that white metal tomb, the soft fibres of my sleeping bag melting slowly into my skin like a parasite. There’s never any air in the morning, just a heavy sagging choke of farts and sleep stink. Three of us in here, fermenting over night like cheese. I sit up to see what I always see at this time, Pete’s hairy little balls poking out of his boxer shorts, gasping for air. My brother is not much better, prone against the hot metal of the van, a delicate shine of moisture already glazed across his face. I make for escape, hauling my sleeping bag down and sliding the van door open with a roar that stirs the others but fails to wake them.

Outside it’s already hot but at least there’s oxygen. I stretch and pop my bones, titling my head towards another perfect blue, the sharp, dry grass under my bare feet splinters like broken green glass. I walk to the camp shop and buy a carton of iced coffee and a sandwich. When I get back they’re still lying there, not sleeping anymore, just lying in that rotten white tin like decomposing meat. After my sandwich I drink my coffee and smoke a cigarette. They complain about the smoke drifting into the van. It’s better than the smell that’s in there already I tell them. They mumble grumpily and I’m not sure if they agree.

Too long later and we’re finally ready to go, up towards Darwin, towards the fresh sea air. We huddle into the front seats of the van, a little cleaner, a little more awake. I’m in the middle again as my brother turns the key and shakes the white tin awake. It sputters and coughs, it wants to go back to sleep. But my brother won’t let it.

The passing landscape is spectacular in its uniformity. There is nothing to see, nothing passing by, nothing of interest. And for that it is spectacular. Pete quickly falls back to a drooling stupor, his chubby face meshed into his pillow like road kill. My brother stares ahead through mirrored lenses at that great road that doesn’t bend. I stare out into the shivering heat haze, watching for something, anything. But it doesn’t come. Eventually I too close my eyes as we float along the highway like ghosts.

After a lunch of soup, coffee and smoke Pete takes the wheel, allowing me the luxury of the passenger seat window. I stick my head out like a dog, letting the warmth run over my face like treacle. Pete wants Madonna, my brother wants Queen, they compromise gloriously with The King. We tap our feet and smile. The open road is beautiful. With the windows open and Pete’s foot on the peddle we’re too fast for the sun to heat us. We cruise the soft tarmac like light, our bellies fat with freedom.

In the darkness something goes wrong. Something metal dies beneath us; our white tin sputters to a stop, abandoning us in a wheeze of tepid dark smoke. We sit there in silence, no sound around us, not even insects, not even night. My brother breaks the void with muttered questions and curses as he turns the key again and again, but our only reply is a painful groan. Our white van is dying; he wants to be left alone. But we won’t let him die, not yet, not out here in the abyss.

We get out and squint into the steaming, metal cavity like blind surgeons. Pete prods and pokes, pretending he knows more than nothing. My brother waves smoke away. I stare inside, thinking about the person we bought this from, wondering if he’s laughing.

I walk to the rear of the van to smoke and look back along the black road we have travelled. There is nothing around us, not even red and blue, just black and the white dusting of the universe above.

Soon they give in, admitting that as much as they wish they could they can’t. We have our phone between us, illuminating our faces green as we huddle around its awakening. One little bar of signal smiles up as we smile back. Pete makes the call. He thinks we’re not far from a place called Katherine. The operator gives him a number and soon we’re waiting for a hero in a tow truck.

We wait outside in the darkness, turning our backs to the van, betrayed. We don’t talk much, instead listening for the night and staring into nothing. I watch the ground for dinner plate spiders or black skinned snakes but they leave us in peace. An hour passes and nothing, just us on the road under the sky. I imagine running into the black, into the colourless wild. I wonder what would kill me.

With our tired old tin in the garage and our packs on our backs we take to the midnight streets. Katherine is a ghost, lonely and warm, her tarmac bathed in streetlight yellow. We find an all-night convenience store and stock up on sandwiches and junk, the half-awake behind the counter points us in the direction of the only hostel, his fingers stained molten, nicotine chasing his grey hair back to colour.

We sit outside on the curb to eat and drink. A figure in the distance the only sign of life, standing in the middle of the road, swaying, looking up to the stars, his skin as black as above. We chew and swallow and watch, this tragic welcoming party not filling our tired hearts with confidence. Eventually he lies down on the warm tarmac and sings for a while, we don’t know his language and we don’t know his song.

We finish and walk, our packs weighing us down as we pass more of these black wanderers. None can walk straight but they try to come to us, to ask for our help, for our money. We quicken, not wanting their hands, not at this time and in such an unfamiliar place. It’s late but we’re sweating, I follow behind my brother, a silver bead rushes down his neck and quickens against his spine. I see him shiver.

The smiling crocodile of the Palm Court sign welcomes us like a mirage. We wander weary towards the reception office like returning soldiers, passing the small pool and a rag-tag of night owls smoking cigarettes and watching as we pass. Leave us alone, go back to your hushed conversation and leave us the fuck alone.

Dale the owner is tired and dressed in sleep clothes, seemingly not used to new arrivals at such a late hour, which for a hostel in the middle of nowhere seems strange to me. He yawns like a hippo as he gives my brother a form to fill in, dates of birth, countries of origin, diseases and medications, next of kin. I browse the book-swap box, Kerouac’s still on the road, joined by Grisham and King and someone I’ve never heard of.

Dale pops the door to our own little dorm room, four beds for three. Tomorrow we’ll have to move to one of the bigger dorms he tells us, his dressing gown cord dragging on the tiles. My brother nods our affirmatives with a smile; he’s so polite, even at such a time at the end of such a day. I could be more like him if I tried.

Dale leaves us. We take turns in the little bathroom, me first. I piss and brush my teeth, staring into the clean mirror at my panda dark eyes. I’m in my new bed, listening to Pete’s piss splash noisily into the middle of the pan like water from a kettle. Why can’t you aim for the sides, I wonder? But I don’t care too much, the clean white sheets smell good around my tired body. This will be the best night of sleep I will ever have, I will dream of adventure and fucking and I will awake reborn, ready to love the world. I think of our poor white van in the cold dark garage, and I hope it’s terminal.