opinios

Mie wondered if she wasn't making contact with him on purpose, perhaps willing the masses to sway in her favour, "accidentally" leaning on him against her own volition. Partly it was true - she couldn't really avoid it. But she knew she was lingering, staying to feel his warmth, and when the crowd leaned back again, her hesitation turned a brief touch into a signal, a sign of intimacy yearned for.

For three stations she let herself lean forward, supposedly unable to do anything about this circumstantial union of their hands. Mie closed her eyes and savoured the energy she was deriving from his touch. Images of kindness, warmth and happiness flooded her heart and she began to feel excited at the thrill of new prospects, new love, a new connection.

Ok, I have been working on a big piece of writing that I hope to finish soon, but in the mean time this came out of my disturbed mind. Maybe it is all the rain we have been having lately. Definitely don't read this if you are looking for a pick-me-up, but if you are curious about what living in a big city can bring you to create, check out Balance, my latest perverse work of fiction.

It was a clear fresh day and the sun shone crisply and Geoff, being unemployed, had a lot of time to enjoy it. He was still standing in his dirty underpants, fresh from bed yet fusty and unshaven, a crop of ginger hairs poking through his chin. He had just finished his first cigarette of the day and tossed the butt into a used coffee cup. He then went outside and sat in his small garden and shut his eyes. The sun pressed on his face so that inside his eyelids burned red. His mind wandered toward Bosch's last request and the red and blue sports bag that lay inside the kitchen door. As he dozed a little fly landed on his arm and walked between his hairs in short jerky sets. Quickly he slapped it flat and flicked off the pancaked corpse. "What did it matter?" he thought, "Bosch was dead. He wouldn't ever know whether it happened or not. Surely he couldn't care. He was dead, right?"

I am very excited to present the latest piece of writing from Nick Prothero. I think you will agree with this effort he is really developing a mastery of the craft of short-story telling. Click here to read Last Request, I guarantee you will enjoy it.

Tom is a cartoonist originally from Germany who has submitted one of the hundreds of humorous cartoons that he has penned over the years. Click here to check it out, and if you like it then explore his portfolio to have a laugh at more of the same...

Oh, by the way - take a look at the latest graphic I came up with after playing around some more in Photoshop. I am in the process of redesigning my company's web page, and was playing around with their logo this morning. But I guess I got sidetracked and came up with this bizarre mish-mash of colour that I actually quite like (although I might have a hard time convincing my boss that it would look cool on the company site!) I call it Bubbles Of Nothing - click here to check it out. Art principles on appropriate use of colour and "ensuring your piece has a focus" be damned!

Of course after a drought, when it rains, it pours! Kinki extends the chase by returning Hammy's lob with a healthy dose of top spin! Who will take the plunge next? Click here to read the story to date...

Hammy has come to the party by submitting the second part of the collaborative story. The search for Josh is on, but no-one knows why. And where was he last night, anyway? Check out the plot as it unfolds here, and have a think about what might happen next... it's up to you!

Contribute to the story by emailing the next instalment to canvas AT opinios.com.

So after that little wander down a dark alley let's get back to it.

Here is a little poem that I wrote the other day while I was seething in anger and frustration at a person who I have to teach with. Honestly, I don't understand how this person ever became an English teacher. She is quite simply the most disorganized, clueless person I have ever met. And although I can usually forgive such flaws, to top it off she is a control freak who insists on making last minute changes to my lesson plans and is unbelievably stubborn about it, even on days when she has completely forgotten that I am even scheduled to teach at her school. Get your act together!!

Aaarrrggh!

Ok, so I need to take a step back and look at the whole picture once in a while. But I'm not asking for any sympathy. I'm just going through the process. I think unleashing every now and then is all part of the thought process. I do have some people in my life who I value for giving me reality checks though. You know who you are, thankyou for the much-needed slap in the face.

But I definitely am happy with the idea of this voice becoming a more personal one. It's all very well to only want to offer up quality when contributing to culture, but things evolve and I need somewhere to vomit my brain's mixed-up musings. I do hope there are not too many angst-ridden posts like that last one as a result, and I worry that my motivation for doing all this is just for the feedback - I profess to need only the outlet, but then if visitors to the site drop off I get disillusioned... why should it matter?

So, when feeling blue just create some more, in any medium. Or at the very least reshuffle your wardrobe. Nothing drastic, but the banner and the sidebar got a bit of a shuffle (kudos to J for the guitar photo I messed with!), I moved over to a new system, and the archive got rearranged in a way that makes maintaining stuff easier for me. The dates are all screwed up but, you know, I'll get to that eventually.

This web site is currently the closest thing I have to holding onto any element of technical skills that I will no doubt have to fall back on for at least a while when we eventually go back to Australia - it's not like I am going to find any work teaching English. And if I want to pursue anything else (current realistic options are: Japanese teacher in a school or self-employed web site designer, less realistic ones are full-time musician or writer) it will require some kind of qualification that will take time and... well weddings and houses and stuff all cost money. So not only is this web site important to me creatively, it is my only link back to an IT job in Australia.

Oh, it's so much easier to pretend I'm never leaving Japan, pretend that I can continue getting paid good money to teach kids how to speak English and play games with them and never go home. In some ways the parallels between Japan and Never Never Land are remarkable (and we haven't even been to Tokyo Disneyland yet!)

At least I do have something to fall back on though. And a loving fiance and a terrific job while living a dream I have had from since high school of living in Tokyo, so it's not all bad. I can't help but let the creative process overwhelm me every now and then though, it will always be there as both a lover and a demon, an unpredictable acid trip. But life hardly sucks. It just sucks me in from time to time.

Still, having a good old vent does feel good, even if no-one wants to read it. Try it some time.