Today I woke up in Brisbane in a five storey listed building stashed amid the skyscrapers. Eight people sleep in my room and the floor is covered in clothes and bags, as backpackers temporarily take residence. The halls smell like and old hotel.
I wind down the corridors, past the rooms with different voices and languages chattering inside, through the lobby full of brochures and into the openness of the street.
People don't J-walk here, so the street corners are always packed with people waiting intently, occasionally turning and laughing. The buildings are tall, but no one ever looks up.
It's quite disquieting to return to a city after so long travelling, and a number of things appear quite apparent which would not otherwise be.
One man, head lowered, races to where he needs to be.
People are quite out of shape, or fat. In the country, people looked lively and healthy. Here, adorned in city fashion, everyone is a little paler. A little more sickly. A little less like what a person should be.
A woman, head tilted back, breathes in the city, savouring his ten minutes of daily morning freedom.
People look very busy. They are thinking things and doing things, worrying about who, when and where, while out bush one lives in a meditatively peaceful state.
A man in a suit talks slowly and pointedly into his phone.
People work all the time. A lot of people in the country will work a month on and two off, or one in three. Working all year and spending it on a car and an apartment with a slightly better view than the other apartment so some old stressed important man who is you in ten years will think more of you seems absurd when you could work six months and the lie on a beach for the rest of the year.
A man tells his boss to eff off.
The din of the cars is so constant hardly anyone even notices. The noise is constant, everywhere, thundering.
A bus hisses as it stops. A truck swings wide to take a city corner. A man shouts down from a high up building site. A coffee grinder winds up and stops. A car moves roars from one traffic light to the next.
A man can't hear his own footsteps.
I wind down the corridors, past the rooms with different voices and languages chattering inside, through the lobby full of brochures and into the openness of the street.
People don't J-walk here, so the street corners are always packed with people waiting intently, occasionally turning and laughing. The buildings are tall, but no one ever looks up.
It's quite disquieting to return to a city after so long travelling, and a number of things appear quite apparent which would not otherwise be.
One man, head lowered, races to where he needs to be.
People are quite out of shape, or fat. In the country, people looked lively and healthy. Here, adorned in city fashion, everyone is a little paler. A little more sickly. A little less like what a person should be.
A woman, head tilted back, breathes in the city, savouring his ten minutes of daily morning freedom.
People look very busy. They are thinking things and doing things, worrying about who, when and where, while out bush one lives in a meditatively peaceful state.
A man in a suit talks slowly and pointedly into his phone.
People work all the time. A lot of people in the country will work a month on and two off, or one in three. Working all year and spending it on a car and an apartment with a slightly better view than the other apartment so some old stressed important man who is you in ten years will think more of you seems absurd when you could work six months and the lie on a beach for the rest of the year.
A man tells his boss to eff off.
The din of the cars is so constant hardly anyone even notices. The noise is constant, everywhere, thundering.
A bus hisses as it stops. A truck swings wide to take a city corner. A man shouts down from a high up building site. A coffee grinder winds up and stops. A car moves roars from one traffic light to the next.
A man can't hear his own footsteps.
