Need a lift, buddy?

Well, the Melbourne stretch of the Supanova convention is over and next up is Brisbane. The two non-convention days in Melbourne since the thing ended on Sunday have been fairly quiet with very few signs of The Hatch to disturb our sleep. Someone claims to have found some Hatch droppings on the roof of a church, but without proper laboratory facilities they could be anything droppings, and, in fact, look suspiciously like regular old human droppings (Australians, for whatever reason, seem to love shitting on churches).

Monday, upon starting my first wander of the day, I ran into Katee Sackhoff in the lobby, smiling and being generally lovely. Confused, I shook her hand and bid her a safe trip back home to L.A, env Jeckyll ying her a bit as I really miss my favorite ramen house. What had become of the unstoppable tank of a monster that I had done battle with just days before? I asked her how her con experience was, asked if she recalled anything at all unusual happening. She spoke of a particularly creepy fan, but mentioned nothing about her raging attack on my person, her destruction of the green room, her ruining of a couch and a Hayden Panetierre. I let it go at that, frightened of what could be a Jekyll and Hyde situation, or possibly a Hulk situation, or maybe the wolfman or a dracula that doesn’t know it’s a dracula at night. Who knows. I knew only that I wanted to be far away from it when next it went off.

Speaking of Panetierre, the cleanup staff tried vigorously to remove the stains that were the only remnants of the once vibrant little female impersonator. Disturbingly enough, there appeared to be some life left in the residual matter, making me wonder if Hayden was not so much a human being but a collective of smaller organisms blown to pieces by the rampaging Sackhoff. In time, perhaps these atomized pieces will find each other again, not unlike at the end of Iron Giant when all the gears and cogs reform to give Vin Diesel another opportunity to work again.

My gears and cogs took me all around town to a pizza place that I didn’t like so much where I sat outside and did some sketches for little devil creatures and stared at the people a bit.

After that I wove in and out of various graffiti covered alleys, taking pictures of the local urban beautification.

Wanted to find another place to plant myself for more drawing where I could get a fine cup of tea, but was reminded of the Simpsons episode where Marge is trying to order a cup of coffee in Australia. Nothing was open where I was except for some restaurants and pubs. The cafe’s I did spot were all closed for the night as , apparently, drinking tea after 6 turns the natives into gremlins.

Polyester Books on Brunswick was a pretty sweet find. Picked up a copy of some Lovecraft stories I didn’t have as well as a copy of The Master and Margarita.

Was a long walk back to the hotel and I wasn’t feeling to hot about it. If you’re in New York, Central Park area, it’s not uncommon to see horse drawn carriages for tourists and such to zoom about in. If you’re in San Diego around convention times you’ll see human slaves pulling rickshaws around, filled with unmercifully large visitors who need a ride to the nearest large persons club.

Well, it’s no different here in this chunk of Australia, only they have these rickety carts pulled by Ostriches. I had held off because, frankly, the things looked none too safe nor very controllable. Some had riders, some didn’t, leading me to believe that terrible things happened to the people put in charge of the scary things. There would be these Ostrich cart depots where the things would return to, empty and waiting for someone to throw a bit of coin their way.

Taxi cabs aren’t an option for my kind of American traveller, despite my American nationality. Australians are incapable of not visualizing me in full on mariachi regalia, complete with enormous sombrero. The few times I have hailed a cab, giving the address where I want to go, I was greeting with shaking heads and anger. “That sombrero won’t fit in the cab!” they would bark out at me, confusing the hell out of me. Frightened, I’d raise a hand up to my head thinking “But…I’m not wearing a sombrero, or AM I?”. Sure enough, no sombrero, but the attempts were useless either way.

So I was left with only this more unsavory method of speedier travel. The driver, a bruised and beaten old Malaysian man with a patch over his right eye took my coin. He croaked out a few instructions on how to sit on the splintery cart so as to avoid injury but I caught nearly none of it. The Ostrich itself looked agitated, and would occasionally make pecking attempts at the driver’s face, making dull contact with his cheek every so often. I tried to contain my unease, but it was already going so poorly.

I was ready to step back down, thanking the driver for letting me on, making up some story about how I remembered I actually hate this, but the Ostrich turned to look at me with the insane, howling void in its black eyes. I sat still, knowing that whatever happened on this trip would be better than what could happen if I walked away just then.

The old man unleashed a terrible screech and the Ostrich was off. I gripped the sides of the cart for dear life and watched the old man struggle with the crazily weaving beast. I could discern no logic in the movements of the monstrous bird, not even knowing if I was headed in the right direction to get back to the hotel. Above all that, I only knew that I wanted to live, that being dropped off a hundred miles away would be fine with me so long as I could just live.

The driver was so frail and battered that he barely made contact with his seat, being flung off most of the time and crashing back on his bony ass with a fierce crack of bones and wood.

For no reason that I could see, the ostrich spin it’s head around and struck deep into the old man’s face. I heard a sound like a bundle of sticks being stepped on at the strike and watched as the old man grasped the spraying pit that was his face and collapse from the cart. Looking behind me, I saw that the old fellow was immediately being descended upon by Australians hungry from flesh.

Alone on that nightmarish ride, alone save for the mad bird, I screamed for my life, screaming names not called since I was a child, scared of ghosts and certain breads. The ostrich cared nothing for prayers, cared nothing for fear or sanity. The ostrich was riding a rail of insanity seen only by itself and the devil that runs the show.

Surprisingly enough, it stopped at my hotel, but pecked the woman behind the check-in counter THROUGH the window. I stepped through the shattered remains of both window and woman and ran up to my room, locking the door firmly.

Brisbane soon.