Whilst this continues on from the last bit of writing, I’m pretty sure this happened in 2016 due to one of the things said, and it all happened soon after we’d gone up to Katoomba one afternoon. Again, minimal editing, preserved as was.

Something to note is that there was a tea cup tree (as in a tree with tea cups hanging on its branches) where the person working in the garden was, and they took it down. It didn’t happen whilst Ewe and I were around, and at least for Ewe it was a suburban icon of sorts. I imagine to plenty of others they felt the same. Ewe hadn’t seen that person before and hasn’t seen them since, but the tree was gone when he last walked past it, and its loss was also a loss for some of the area’s identity.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

—

Before sunset Ewe and I decided to head out to find a spot that would be good for watching the sunset over Mount Solitary. Luckily there was something that was pretty close to where we were and after a good fifteen minute walk we found ourselves in the bush once more.

Having grown up in the Blue Mountains, Ewe knew of all these semi-secret places that allowed for some really amazing views. I would have never found them on my own as they were really easy to walk past without realising you had passed them, leaving many of the great areas to see valleys, mountains and huge swathes of bushland seldom visited and much easier to access.

Our view was framed by the trees near us, but that was okay as we could still see the sky and part of Mount Solitary quite well. There was a house nearby but otherwise the area was fairly untouched.

Without saying a word and acting as though it was the most natural thing in the world, Ewe pulled out a joint, lit it, took a puff and then silently offered me an opportunity to partake. Trying not to show my surprise, I took the joint from his hand and took a long drag.

We passed it back and forth until it was done, commented on the strength and smoothness and laughed a little before all fell silent as the sun set somewhere off in the distance, casting strong red, orange and yellow tones across the sky with the aid of the clouds scattered throughout and leaving us to be in awe of what we were experiencing.

“That’s amazing.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Looks good.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

There was a slight amount of laughter.

I started getting worried about how close we were standing to the edge, but I made sure to keep a check on my balance so as to not fall off.

Somewhere behind us I could hear something approaching. It started as a low, inorganic hum but as it grew closer and louder it began to reveal itself as something beyond this world and understanding. I knew that it was close and that in that moment everything could have gone to hell, so I turned around as quickly as I could to see what it was before it was with Ewe and I.

There was nothing there.

“Oh fuck, it’s just a coal train.”

My mind snapped back to reality when I realised that whilst we were a bit of a distance away, we could still hear the coal trains along the tracks.

“What was?”

“I thought that there was something approaching. It was this really weird sound. It was a coal train.”

My sense of relief was almost overwhelming.

“Oh yeah, I heard that too. Really weird.”

“Yeah. Glad it was nothing.”

“Yeah.”

We stood there laughing for a few minutes before the sense of calm came over us once more.

“Hey Ewe, did you hear what happened to the guy who lost all of his left limbs?”

“No. What happened?”

“Well, I hear he, uh… is having a difficult time… and is depressed due to the loss of his, uh, limbs.”

Ewe’s silent disgust at my terrible delivery and punchline was louder than everything else in the area.

“Oh come on man, that’s funny.”

“It wasn’t. That was terrible.”

“Should we get going soon?”

“We can if you want. We can stay.”

“We probably should go before it gets too dark. The edge is freaking me out a bit.”

“Do you really want to go?”

“I want to go.”

“Let’s go.”

And with that we were off, trying to walk back the way we had come and almost tripping over a number of times.

The walk back to Ewe’s mum’s place was one of the longest walks that I had ever endured in my life.

“Hey Ewe, did you hear about the guy who lost all of his left limbs?”

“No, I don’t want to hear this.”

“Nah man, it’s a serious question.”

“I don’t want to know. No. Please don’t.”

“No, it’s serious this time.”

“Fine, what? What happened?”

“I’m asking you. Did you hear about the guy?”

“No, I don’t want to do this.”

“No man, I’m asking you. It’s a serious question. Did you hear about him?”

“He lost his limbs.”

“Yeah, then what next?”

“I am not playing along.”

“I’m asking you. There’s no joke here.”

“He… I don’t know! He lost his limbs and then he had them reattached.”

“Reattached? But he lost them.”

“Well he found them.”

“But how did he find them if they were lost?”

“He got someone else’s limbs. He ended up with a right foot on his shoulder.”

“He ended up with a right foot on his shoulder?”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t make sense. How did that happen?”

“He had a bad doctor. He ended up with an arm coming out of his torso.”

“No way. That didn’t happen.”

“I… don’t know what you’re doing!”

“I’m not doing anything. I’m trying to find out what happened to this guy, you’re saying he’s got a foot on his shoulder and an arm coming out of his torso.”

“Yep. That’s what happened.”

“So has he gotten it fixed?”

“Well he can’t. It can’t be reversed. He’s now stuck like that. End of story.”

“No, that can’t be the case. There has to be more.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s more. He’s stuffed. He has to deal with this now and there’s nothing he can do. He has to live the rest of his life like that. Done. Finished.”

At the start I was trying to screw with Ewe, but then I thought he was doing a bit and was getting really invested in what he was saying about this guy who lost limbs.

Whilst this was wrapping up, Ewe decided to take us up a short, steep hill. I was sweating heavily and found it to be one of the most difficult climbs that I had ever mad in my life, but on the plus side it meant that we didn’t have to walk our way around a longer route.

The sun had well and truly set at this point. Whilst there were some street lights, most of the area was very dark. This had the benefit of allowing us to see some of the stars in the sky much more clearly than in the city. It was rather magnificent in that moment, walking along after a hill climb, marveling at the massiveness of it all whilst still looking like tiny flecks of light.

As Ewe and I neared the last corner we needed to go around before we would be back at his mum’s place, we could see someone gardening in the dark.

They saw us and asked “Going for a walk in the dark?”

As we stopped, Ewe responded with “Coming back. Been doing a bit of work on the garden?”

“Yeah, just replanting and putting in some new plants. It needed a bit of work so I thought that whilst I was up here I’d get it all sorted.”

“It’s looking good.”

“Aw thanks. I’ve been working at it all this afternoon. There’s still a fair bit to go further back but it’s a start.”

“Yeah, well you’ve got a good start there. It’s looking a fair bit better. Bit different, but better.”

“It was mostly rearrangement work. I’ve been digging up the plants for most of the afternoon and then once that was done I cleared a bit of the grass so I could dig into here and then replant them. Still got a bit of work to do before I stop though.”

“You’re still going in the dark?”

“Yeah, that is a bit weird.”

I was standing there doing my best to hide the fact that I was stoned. I really wanted to go but I knew that the gig would be up so I did my best to look as calm and collected as possible by looking back and forth along the new row of plants.

“So you from around here?”

“Yeah. Well, yes and no. I grew up here and my mum still lives here, but I’ve moved down to Sydney. Just up visiting.”

“That’s nice. I work further down the mountain for Woolies. Just up to visit some friends, working on the garden whilst I’m here.”

“Oh, you work for Woolies do you?”

“Yeah. Nothing major. Hard work, keeps me busy. I used to live up here myself but I had to leave. Vicious. Still come up on occasion though. It’s good to come and visit people you know. Also allows me time to work on the garden.”

“Yeah, well it’s looking good.”

“Cheers. Anyway, I think I’m going to stop and rest for now. Been going for a while. You boys have a good night, alright?”

“Alright, see you. Have a good one mate.”

Once Ewe was done we walked as quickly as we could. I told him that I could barely handle the conversation once we were past what I thought was hearing range. Ewe told me that it was a bit much. We both agreed that the gardening work looked good, but I added that I had no idea as to what I was meant to be looking at when we were there.

When we got back to the house I didn’t want to go back in yet as I didn’t think I could handle talking to someone who wasn’t stoned. We decided that it would be a better idea to go to the pub and so, instead of entering the premises we kept on walking.

Of course I had forgotten about the uphill that we had to traverse in order to get back into the main part of town and, as soon as I saw it, I began to balk at the idea of going.

“I don’t think that I can do this right now.”

“We’ve come this far. We can turn back, but are you sure that you want to?”

“I could go for a drink, but I don’t think I can handle going back into town. Not right now. I think I might be too high.”

“Come on man, you can do it. No one will know. Everyone’s probably going to have a few drinks in them by now.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I can. It might be a bit too much. I also don’t think that I can get up this hill.”

“Come on man, you can do it. Fuck it if they know we’re stoned. Let’s just do it.”

“Alright.”

We started going up the incline, but within a few minutes of going up this hill I caved and gave up.

“No, I can’t do this. This is too much. I’m heading back. Let’s head back man.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I can’t do this. This hill is too long and too steep.”

“…Alright. I’m kind of glad as this hill is too much to do right now.”

And so we turned back around and made a quick journey back to the house.

Once we were back at the house we had a quick walk around Ewe’s mum’s garden, despite it being very dark. I did not want to go inside yet as I felt that I was too stoned to be able to handle being around Ewe’s mum. We remained outside for a little while before Ewe began saying that he really just wanted to go back inside. He said that I could stay out there if I wanted to and come in when I was ready, but I decided that it was better that I faced my fear.

We went in and it looked like Ewe’s mum had already gone to sleep, and rather early too.

We had some food and decided to see what was on the TV. There was a show that Bindi Irwin was on, which caught Ewe off-guard.

“Holy shit, Bindi Irwin’s gotten old.”

“Well yeah. She has grown up.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen her in a while. I didn’t expect her to be so old.”

“Fair enough.”

We surfed the stations for a little while. Mandu, the cat of the house, was wandering about. When he came near us I sat on the floor next to him and started petting him, for about twenty minutes. Ewe watched for a while. It was intense as I was unable to stop. I found myself drawn into the act of petting the cat as it lay there enjoying the attention.

When I was able to finally stop Rage was coming on. I hadn’t watched Rage in a long time and, to both Ewe and I it started off with a lot of promise, but slowly descended into stuff that we thought was lacking in substance and quality.

Still, for the hour that we did watch we were still entertained. Some of it had us talking about times when we had blasted music in the afternoon, other parts had us thinking about how the music video had changed over time and become something that was still the same and yet completely different to what it was when it started.

Once we had had enough we tried to find something else that was on, but there wasn’t really anything that we felt was worth watching. It was either all too intense or far too dull.

It had taken a while, but the pot was finally wearing off at this point. I was finding myself thinking a little closer to something resembling rationality and I was also finding myself to be very tired. I went to bed, laid down and fell asleep.