6 night shifts in a row. A sudden and significant increase in temperature. Gauge measures 28.5 degrees in our dorm at 6am. Sleeping in daylight is 3 to 5 hours of fitful napping, punctuated by tossing, a constant sheen of sweat and loud room mates who sleep at night like normal people. A fan hums in perpetual motion with limited function emphasising noise over cooling ability. After missing so much sleep recently, I'm a loaded weapon short of mass murder.
Day 7 saw the third last patch of tomatoes stripped naked like it's a prom night after party. Bad news for the joker on green bins. I'm bin cleaner now though, and that is a bikini party I am happy to host nightly. No one attends, but the invitation is open. The day shift team laboured while I was at the hostel sizing up blunt instruments with nefarious intent. Relief came like a psychiatrists prescription when our team was finally given a night off. In being defiled, patch 6 hadn't given out enough love to justify two teams processing its harvest.
When the night off was announced, universal shouts of relief issued forth like multiple money shots on a porn set. The looks of happiness were unrestrained, but lacked the associated twitching of the aforementioned climaxes. The afterglow had barely subsided by the time we descended en masse upon the bottle shop. Numerous purchases were made, detrimental to both wallet and liver. Ronan dared contravene strict hostel rules about glass stubbies and was unable to smuggle them in beneath the owners all-seeing eye. A warning was issued over the loudspeaker about such flagrant disregard for rules irrespective of how bizarre or trivial they may seem.
A session so solid was then undertaken that I barely remember much of it. Thankfully my camera contained many photos of me having a grand old time, so I'm happy I had fun. Being unable to remember anything the next day would undoubtedly concern many people not inclined to such adventures. Memory does not define the significance of anything for me, due to its backwards perspective. As long as I enjoyed myself at the time, remembering it turns out to be just an occasionally absent, but pleasant side effect.
Aside from photos capturing what the brain could not, the surrounding environment usually contains enough evidence to detail what the previous night witnessed. To that end, Ronan rather boldly left all his empty glass bottles laying around the outside table. I always took him for the shy, retiring type, but the reckless abandon with which he decorated the table with contraband demonstrated the falsity of my assumptions. Unfortunately the hostel owner spends about 75% of his life as a Mr. Hyde; only drunker. Yeah, that's right! Failing to see an upside to Ronan's rebellion, Mr. Hyde overlooked 4 months of good behaviour to unceremoniously evict both Ronan and his girlfriend Elaine.
Their frank exchange of unpleasantries awoke me after about 3 hours of broken intoxicated unconsciousness, when I really needed at least 20 hours of deep sleep. My body was down to a 40% water level making every thought wade through setting cement. Had my brain not implemented level 6 water restrictions, it would have given an order to urgently evict all responsible intoxicants still in my stomach. Before I had enough time to understand what was happening, which was about 30 minutes after I heard it, check out times had been imposed on two of my closest friends for the duration of my Bowen odyssey. I quickly rationalised that my state was somewhat justified now as a going-away celebration. I was then forced to overcame strong feelings of deja vue, and go to work where I managed to put in a solid 13 hours of doing fuck all assuming various job related positions of disinterest.
It was fitting that it was in full blown party mode that close friends met their untimely end. I would like to go out with a bang after doing so much partying here that my liver cells are recognised as an endangered species. Even though such a constant work load has kept me from most parties involving many people worthy of more of my time, my bank has definitely benefited. With such an extravagant lifestyle of 3 months defined by upper class dining and bacchanalian excess, I have still managed to save $2,500 and Asia is only a 5 minute internet booking away. Seems that too much is happening here in Australia for the next 6 months though, so be prepared for more of the same for the time being.
