Going home. I'm slouched in the car seat - the wheels grumble along the highway and the Arctic Monkeys sing about fishnet stockings, but my mind is elsewhere. In the distance ahead are huge green hills, ancient goddesses who once roamed the land but now with their magic departed they lie dormant, their giant posteriors exposed and overgrown with grass and trees. I feel different. I feel like I was filthy before, and have arisen from the lake, clean and shining. Actually no, no no. I feel like I have but weeks or days to live, and I'm savouring everything while I can. Nothing matters but the warmth of the sun and the lines on the road, stretching out forever.
'You alright dude?' Monkey yells out beside me. Part of me wants to punch him in the head. 'Yeah I'm fine, alright,' I reply for the hundredth time. Can't a man sit and think in peace? 'I don't know dude, you seem kind of...' I love the way holidays make you see the bigger picture, makes you realise how insignificant most things are, things that you and I might lose sleep over. How trivial, demented beings, we all are.
I remember all the stupid things that occurred during the trip, and I start grinning foolishly. I turn my head towards the passenger window so as not to freak Monkey out with my manic behaviour. I love these winding roads, these waving trees, these wide clear skies. I think I'm in a state of bliss.

I'm at the Hunter, now. A moment ago three larks (at least they looked like larks - do they even exist in Australia?) did loops around the balcony posts and over my head. It's beautiful here, sitting on a deck chair on the balcony, the clear sky and gentle autumn sun, surrounded by a valley of trees and the crisp tinkle of bellbirds.
The weather was pretty bleak as we drove in. The sky was always grey, and the rain fell constantly. What is it about grey that makes us melancholy? Why do bright colours have the opposite effect? On the last stretch of road leading up to the cabin there was a large concrete pipe that ran alongside the road for miles, cutting over green pastures like some monstrous black snake. The sight of it made me uneasy. In a place where things seem so simple - a land of cows and grapes and fenced paddocks - there was this massive alien thing that was testament to all the complexities of man. Why must we scar the land like this with our tools and machinery? I wonder what the cows think.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the weekend here. I can smell bacon frying in the kitchen, and then the faint pop of the toast jumping out of the toaster. This escape - it seems my whole life is a series of escapes and attempted escapes.

It's Sunday, 6pm. Outside my window the sky is purple grey, and large ominous clouds of the same hue hang low over red-tiled roofs. A single plane glides across in the distance, its lights winking red and green. I'd been cutting up onions downstairs, and now after rubbing the stubble that's grown under my lower lip, it's pungent odour follows me like a ghost. There's a million thoughts in my head, spinning around in that centrifuge upstairs. I see the future, I see it as clearly as a road train bearing upon me with it's horn wailing and lights flashing, but I am powerless to do anything, the deer I am paralysed by headlights.
Already now the sky has changed to a deep blue, and I hear crickets chirping somewhere - I'm sure they were there before, but I was too absorbed to notice. Tomorrow isn't too far away. Tomorrow, how I shiver. Another day and another week. God they go by quickly. Tomorrow I will wear my shirt tucked into my pants, and smile when I sit in my corner, tapping my life away with all ten fingers. The grass is merely a different shade of green, here.
Someone told me I must be unhappy, but I corrected them, telling them no, I might not be happy but neither am I unhappy. But then what am I? Content? Satisfied? No, I'm indifferent, and maybe that's the best thing to feel, for whatever befalls me I'm always the same. Am I already that old? I dream of one day emerging from my shell victorious, resplendent and young and happy and free.