The Bottle Man

My eyes open, containing a few drops of teary liquid. I am in the bottle man's body again. Most days I wake with watery gogglers. I am a miserable wretch and a dirty hound. I have no way of justifying my existence, except that I exist for no reason. I am playing my own small part in human history. I am the man of the future and I am the first to change. I am as worthy as any great mind, or astronaut, or fast runner. Except that I am a cowardly, snivelling, little bugger.

And today is my big day. Dole form day. Pushing it to the limit I get out of bed at 11.30. Got to get moving. If I don't do it today, then it will have to be done tomorrow. This would throw me in a big way. I have spent the last week preparing myself in mind, body and soul.

The powers of bureaucracy are the forces of evil (except for the $200 they give me every couple of weeks). They are hindering the future. In the quagmire of offices and semi-intelligences they have nearly broken the bottle man. But I have risen to the occasion and my life is once again on a level path to non-existence and mineral consciousness.

Yes. When they brought in the personal appearance at Social Security, before the start of the Midday Show, it threw me. I had my life worked out, a routine I had worked on day and night, refining it and purifying it. Suddenly I was thrown into orbit. I had my human contact level down to an all time historic low. I was living in a vast city of the future. I ate food. I had a working condition black and white TV. And I lived in my own dirty little box.

The morning light is cutting through my self-constructed paper venetian blinds. I wipe away the tears with a leaf from the pile I keep near my mattress. I hurriedly put on one of my vast selection of dirty-hound coats. I close my homemade adobe mud-cupboard and shift into gear. The morning light is about to become afternoon light. As the sun reaches it's zenith, as Ray Martin enters make-up, as the tuna is emptied from tin to display chamber, I make my way out into the harsh world of reality.

My schedule is tight. I learned many years ago not to rely on public transport. Apart from the terrifying experience of stopping a bus, fumbling around for money, saying something to the angry being who has to ice-break through traffic all day, lie about destinations, sit next to people ... the list is endless and horrific ... a machine cannot be relied upon for precise timing. By walking at a swift scuttle however, I can make the office in 15 minutes.

People move out of the way. The dirty-hound coat and greasy hair make sure of that. I look neither to the left or to the right. My head is down, back is sloped forward for speed; I am a dog on a mission. In the unlikely event of anyone calling to me (fuck off you ugly bugger, oi you! piss off etc.) I wouldn't falter. I must get my form in: nothing else matters.

Long ago, in another era, all I had to do was to get to the post office on the day of reckoning. I could amble along at a leisurely pace. A stamp, an envelope and a creative mind were all I needed to get by. Then someone, or perhaps a think tank from the cream of the public service, decided that if dirty hounds weren't up in the morning, they wouldn't be out looking for the work they couldn't have. So maybe if they got them up one morning every two weeks they wouldn't sleep so much. This would lead to a decline in across-the-board laziness, and eventually everyone would be gainfully employed.

This sort of logic has filled countless square metres of office space in their own department, with people thinking up similar schemes and an army of minions to put this into paperwork. But I took it as a challenge. My life is geared to the refinement of the soul, and through this my mind and body, and eventually the future. Nothing will stop me.

Even if they were to take it all from me: my security, my sustenance and my reason for being. I would not be stopped. I have read a few books on eating bark, weeds and lizards. I have tried it out and even though not a particularly pleasant way to live, a possibility. I have my box, my TV and my ever-expanding mind.

My mind is expanding like the original gathering of the matters. Expanding yet densifying through complete non-use. It is only a matter of time before I bang. And then? Who knows, my matter will form an alternative universe. In it there will exist consciousness with no form, minerals, gases, and maybe a few vegetables. With my consciousness redirected over such a space I know I will find peace. Who could not with such an overwhelming feeling of significance? A feeling of massive size and power; a vast swirling, frothing, hissing, magnificence.

And you can share it with me. As a taxpayer every one of you has a share in my fulfilment. And when I am an extra-dimensional entity you will be too, for underneath my dirty-hound coat I am a human. So the small percentage of your income that ends up in my box, is part of everyone who has ever stalked the face of the earth's future. And all I ask of you is your coffee break once a year, or no sauce on your sausage roll once a week, or not to flush the toilet once a day.

My friends, my fellow beings, my mirrors in shape and lovers in spirit; this is what we have been working towards. Our time on this planet has been characterised by waves of achievements, and I am riding the crest of one. Let me surf it.

These are the sort of things that the bottle man is working on. Although my physical appearance is on the lower end of the ladder of achievement, my internal mechanics are shining and greased for action.

These are the sort of things that occupy the mind of the gruesome figure that drifts past you in the street. To some I am invisible, and to many I am the source of anger. I am sensitive to my position in the scheme of things. Although it angers you to feel your small change trickle out of your pocket, over the concrete and up my trouser leg, I am not ungrateful. I can turn the smallest piece of copper into a vast lamp of psychological gold. Everything that is yours will be returned to you in time.

I feed on your ignorance and disgust (lucky for me). The vibrations of despair and mediocrity are channelled into my box, through my body and into my psyche. What do they turn into? I have no earthly means of conveying my work, except perhaps a tiny flash bulb of our potential. The potential that I am shaping and varnishing, grooming and caressing. My gift to you. For it is you who (reluctantly) feed me and cloth me. You are my mothers, although I know a few men will bristle at the idea; and I am your devoted son.

A flash. I enter the DSS in overdrive, avoiding the eyes that are avoiding the other eyes. Which of us is the winner in the desperate straits competition. There are all sorts of entrants; the old diehard three day growth-don't care anymores, the young and wide-eyed gathering the free money with open arms, the bitter failed artists living in garrets, and even ones who can't find a job. All of them, some admittedly more than others, working on the grand re-generation scheme.

And of course there are the type of the other side of the counter. Employed only because we are unemployed, with free-form osmosis between the two. Some of them have crossed the counters huge conceptual barrier many times. I have seen one hurdle the wall, after taking a long run up, during one especially nasty ordeal over a counter check with an ex-brickies labourer.

A bolt of horror wracks my body as I look at the official clock. What could have gone wrong with my carefully refined scheme of entrance? Is my Digi-robot out of sync with world time? How could an automated timekeeper of the future be wrong? The ad in "People" beckoned to me, "crystal set precision in android body of the future a bargain to buy and a guaranteed beautiful little bugger."

The girl who wields the stamp is beginning to move from her position at the form receiving dock. She has already closed her stamp pad! She is in an incredible position of power. She focuses on my harrowed form. She knows the magnitude of her position. Her expression is of resigned superiority. Our eyes contact, a very rare moment for me. I feel a little moisture adding gloss to my pathetic countenance. Still she is a granite boulder; the concrete she works beneath has entered her spirit. This vision of minerals reminds me of my work. I must bring some of my inner powers out into this world of blue carpets and green Laminex. My eyes light with a volcanic glare, the water turns into steam. She tries to avert her mascara'd slits. She can't, as the gaze is held, the concrete turns to sand. She questions her motives, why is she doing this, the true nature of the monster she is an organ of, looms in her mind. She feels my psyche caressing hers (I'm beginning to get a bit of swelling in my physical housing). She receives a flicker of my work, just as you are. She is renewed with hope for the future of the species. Her own work in turn takes on a new light.

She is making the world a better and fairer place in her own little way. She is Robin Hood; she is re-cutting the cake so everyone can at least have a mouthful. She senses a new dimension to her own potential, I feel her inner self surge through her mantle and touch me. She is all around me and inside me, I feel inspired and divine. The dole form slips through my fingers, circling around me, brushing roughly against me under my coat, and through the air onto the counter. The stamp goes down.

I love her… and I love you…

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