Australia is the land where you stay in during the day...with windows closed as not to let the eternal escalating heat in...
Fans are blowing and we’re running the cold tap constantly with the fridge wide open inviting coolness to fill the house.
The weird thing is here in the height of the summer suns rays the trees are a moulting, crisp brown leaves crunching under foot as I walk through the parks looking for stalkers to stalk.

Yes that is my new game stalking stalkers, hey I stalked one the other day crunching leaves simultaneously with my target as not to arouse suspicion,
He walked, stalked, snuck and crept round the blocks and ovals of St Kilda for hours, frequently peering over trees and between bushes.
I would follow,after peering his same peers and creeping his same crunchy steps, calculating his positions using angular mathematics I stared his stares, ‘till I realised he was staring at me... staring at him.
Never making a sound we stared we stalked.
The stalker’s stalker was being stalked,
that is me! Is this my shadow?
It’s 5pm have I been out in the delusive sun too long?

Weaving, crawling, deluding, hallucinating... needing water, I arrive home (still being followed)....
The taps have run dry and the fridge smells of dehydrated vegetable matter, parched is a hard word to say with cacti taking root on your tongue.
So I sit here sucking on a stone hoping the Aboriginals were right and there is a wee lake in the centre of this geological myth, hoping this isn’t a hundred year old crystallised dingo dropping I’m rubbing cacti with.
Stone or poo, legend or myth nothing seems to be happening, cubes of rock salt tumble down into the arid barren craters of my tongue like casino dice, snakes eyes penetrate my brain.
Donning a shady tarp and drinking sunscreen i again venture out in search of rehydration, white and black shadows flit across may path in and out of the bushes, strange guttural noises lure me forward,
I follow through the searing, steaming, empty streets, crawling over dusty sun bleached cacasses and burnt out fire trucks, looking, panting, praying.
An incandescent neon glow is visible through the dusty smoke-steam, sirens wail, vultures circle, black and white shadows kaliede my vision ,
I walk closer, the neon starts to take shape....
’Stones’
It welcomes.

Confused, delirious, inquisitively I approach ,
dreamy mirages and guttural moans accompany a smoky room...
A green glint catches my eye, the floor is glowing,
the shelves are filled with emerald lights... I reach out ..
.stones...stones... stones...
Relieved, rehydrated I sit and stare and gargle ....
My saviour...
‘Stones Ginger Wine’
Slowly breaths life force back into this sun stroked, dehydrated, desiccated body of mind.

Nickolas Jan 2003.