mullumbimbY Madmen

Setting : University campus somewhere on planet earth (sometimes this is debatable), about a half of one hour after the end of first semester exam entitled Principles of Agriculture 100-1. About 11.30 am. The exhilaration of the adrenaline rush that accompanies exams assures our blog participants a feeling of relief mixed with excitement.

Blog participants chat amongst each other exchanging exam strategies and autopsies till merely two remain, Sandy, the son of a Professor of social medicine, young and intelligent, adventuring into the world of campus, very friendly, social and looking forward to the kind of life an agricultural economist is likely to lead, staid but well ... likes to enjoy, and Other, left over flower child searching for a realistic direction in every non realistic way possible, refugee from a major city enjoying the "serenity" of a rural campus, a lost soul who's been lost so many times that it's become difficult to tell which events represent the lost and the non lost portions of life;life itself is an adventure, a roller coaster of energies and opportunities fluctuating between the overwhelmingly attractive and the alarmingly intolerable.

Sandy: Wanna smoke?

Other: Yeah, why not?

Sandy: Let's sit over there on the grass underneath that tree; it's far enough away, nobody ever goes over there.

Both: Plod plod ...

Sandy: in bush tones
'ere it ears.
Lights up

Other: offering the obligatory sound of respect due to the one who has the moolah
Smells good.

Sandy: proudly, in semi-reverent tones
Mullumbimby Madness!

Other: to the sound of one throat struggling desperately to maintain some semblance of throat law and order and to the sound of one million dying brain cells screaming pleadingly for mercy ffffffffffffffhhhhhhh! glmpp oo-o-o kn .... hHhaaaaaaaaaaaaaah h ... (repeat as required)
cerebal valve opening ceremony commences, pressure mounts on nerve endings, cognition awry .... reaching lightspeed, now totally splattered ornately against the rear wall of the cosmos, somehow depicted as an everyday scene, yet extrordinarily different.

Sandy: Whaddle we do now?

Other: Better not sit 'ere orl day

feeling conspicuously sedentary and isolated from the mainstream social flow in a far removed part of the campus where nobody ever goes, wondering why anybody would ever want to sit in such a place except to inhale socially acceptable but legally inacceptable toxic fumes

Sandy: Might go t' tha bistro.

Other: Good idea.

Both: plod plod ... onwards toward the student amenities block, down steps of hewn concrete looking suspiciously like some Tolkein version of sandstone

Sandy: The fountain ...

Both: Peering through the tunnel created by one thousand tiny streams of pressurised liquid resembling moonlight mixed with water, not so distinctly a species unlike themselves, peering amidst millions of tiny bubbles constantly popping themselves into bubble oblivion, echoing an ongoing crescendo effectively drowning the hum and the drum of the humdrum that is our daily hubbub, bubbling a fountain sonata, soothingly caressing the consciousness with an impenetrable wall of, literally, white noise, fit to be the seduction song of titans relaxing after some tiresome battle.

Both: Profound sounds lazily escaping half opened mouths
Wow! cool .... chuckle ... gigglesnort.
Onwards to the bistro intrepid explorers of the insane propel their oblivious minds and bodies, conspiritors in ecstacy, the essence of the mentally disparate, lurking, masquerading, hidden occultists unnoticed among the crouds of the otherwise mediocre half hazy, clouded sky day

Sign on the door: “Bistro Open Midday”.

Sandy: What’s the time now?

Other: 11.48

Both: Ah shit, whadda we do till then?

Silence, amidst the deafening roar of the pre-midday traffic coming and going through the student amenities block, followed by more silence.

Sandy: We could go somewhere else.

Other: HMMM ahh … there’s a bus downtown soon.

Sandy: Awright!

Both: Casual stroll the fourty or so metres of pavers and lawn to the bus stop, where looming large and silent, like a metal whale, stood a blue and silver bus, a heaven sent omen of facility.

Getting on the bus: Looking at the numerous aliens already occupying prime positions within the bus and gazing tormented stares at the even “aliener” bus driver whose otherworldly eyes implored expectantly, all the while desperately struggling against the inordinate desire to burst into strains of the laughter known only to the locked up lunatics, sifting frantically through the disordered file system of a momentarily defunct brain, totally unaware of what to say whilst blocking a torrent of disoriented speech patterns, unfortunately, all of which were inappropriate.

Finally, after what seemed to be multiples of millennia, a glimmer of recognition … there it is … the required statement …

Other: Town please.

Sandy: bee-lining a direct passage to the wide expanse of the still unoccupied rear seat of the bus, exchanging conspiratorial glances and smiles of achievement.

Whee!

Other: Where we gonna go. Got’ny favourites?

Sandy: Dunno.

Other: Maybe we shoulda waited for the bistro. Hey! The bistro opens at noon, the bus leaves at noon, why not …

Both: sheepish giggles bordering on stupidity.

Ya think we’ll get our money back?

Requesting refund from the bus driver amidst the amazed and quizzical stares of the on-looking aliens, roused from their quasi-slumber by strains of the unusual, each alien possibly half thinking of their own indescribable destination when the bus stops on some strange Mars or Venus.

Sighs of relief, release of breath, off the bus clutching refunded bus fare in hand, heading, once more, toward the fabled bistro.

Door opens, odours of tobacco smoke, chatter of lunchtime voices, finding a table, sitting down, release of breath …

Sandy:: What d’ ya want t’ drink?

Other: Dunno! I don’t want anything.

Sandy: Me neither.