Balaclava

 

Gardenvale, half a league, Elsternwick, half a league, Ripponlea, half a league onward, Balaclava. Again, fourth time this week. All in the cuttings of Death’s Head Graffiti (DHG) ride the six or so carriages. Forward, the Jaded Bayside Commuters! (JBC) Charge your glasses! Charge your credit card! Charge at windmills! Charge your battery! Into the valley of Bagels ride the six, or is it seven, carriages. Go fourth, Jaded Brigade! Is there a man dismayed? Or woman, for that matter? Not that the driver knows, speaking through his nose, airing backup trackwork messages through crackling intercom, it’s no romcom, the timetables have blundered. Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to place digit to phone; past Graham Kennedy’s childhood home ride the six carriages. Alighting they cannot to right of them, cannot to left of them, cannot in front of them, the blue-and-yellow Comeng volleys and thunders, storms on like a bat out of hell, a cat on heat, a rat up a drainpipe, a yacht out of Brighton, them scarcely affrighting. Jadedly the JBCs ride the swell and well you know how it is what with one thing and another, into the next automatic doors stop breathless, into the mouth of “well, well, well!” ride the six carriages, into Balaclava Station. Flash all the door buttons bare, flash as they turn in air, serving the goers and comers there, charging their mykis. While all the world wonders, plunged in the battery-smoke right through the line they break, Ukrainians and Russians, realed from the finger-stroke streamed and selected shown by pressed digits on phones, shattered and sundered, image after glassed image a fingernail flicks up and back, not just six hundred, seven, eight, who’s counting. Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon behind them volley and thunder, stormed at with shot and shell, while anti-hero and hero fall outside camera range and drone: JBCs nail-flick the fight with “well, well, well” through their jaws of Death, picturing before-and-after the mouth of Hell, all that is left of invasion, left of six hundred persuasions. When will their power fade? O where’s the charger mate? All the world wonders. Charge the jury! Charge the drink driver! Charge the laptop! Charge like a Mallee bull! Honestly what’s the charge, officer? Honestly Jaded Bayside Brigade, noting the next six hundred tiktoks! Half a league, Windsor, half a league, Prahran, half a league onward, Balaclava fleeting a forgotten thought, all in the valley of DHGs, ride the six or whatever it is carriages. Seven, eight, who’s counting. Fourth time this week. South Yarra, more trackwork, more delays, more often.