Where You'll Find Me

Let me see if I can describe this house to you.

It sits rights on the edge of the sand at the furthest end of the tropical cove, with nothing to identify that there is a house there besides the boat that is tied to the wooden pier. The bay is crystal clear blue water with the occasional wave here and there, landing upon a shore that is the base to tropical forest. After the flat tropical forest the scenery turns to steep cliffs, covered in thicker tropical jungle mixed with native plants and trees.

If you look closely in between all that is a blue weather board beach shack with a newly fitted tin roof. Around the house is a great veranda, with deep pine wood slabs to keep the weeds from growing up through the cracks. The house and veranda are nearly equal in size, with the deep backside of the porch facing out onto the beach.

There are no railings on this veranda to disturb the view, and you can step from the man made structure into nature without knowing it.

The garden doesn’t offer much in the way of exciting plant life, just a little bit of scrub here and there, with well worn paths from the shed to the house. From the dirt road that runs past this property you can only see half of the beach house, all its windows and doors are always open. From the right angle, you can see right through the house and out the back through the sliding French style doors with their billowing white curtains.

Inside the house, the few walls that are without windows are white, making the inside of the house with its one bedroom and one bathroom seem bigger than it really is. All the floors are a polished wood with a rich mahogany colouring, and the bottom rollers for the door leading outside have been sunk so that there is a smooth transition between inside and out.

The bedroom which is on the front side of the house has only half windows and looks out into jungle scrub. Inside the room a huge white mosquito net hangs from the low ceiling, tied back behind the wrought iron double bed during the day. Apart from the bed the room only contains three more pieces of furniture. An old style wardrobe that sits up from the floor on little legs, matched on top by smaller versions of the curly decorations and a front which has double doors lockable by the most impracticable of keys.

Next to this wardrobe in the corner of the room sits a squat armchair with wooden legs and faded green velvet coverings. On the other side of the room is a dresser/desk with a half rusted mirror that once belonged to someone who had time to sit and brush their hair for hours on end.

Directly next to the bedroom on the other side of the wall is the kitchen, only just big enough to fit in a small fridge. The cupboards above the benches are painted white with bronze knobs and glass fronts. The kitchen sink looks directly upon the beach, the only other windows in that house that are not full length.

There is, in the room between the front and back doors that contains a couch and two arm chairs, all arranged on a red Persian rug and heavy coffee table. To the wall that is between the front and back door which contains no windows at all, is built a bookshelf, taking up all the space on that side of the room. The bookshelf contains works of classic and modern literature, as well as photos and reminders of travels from around the world.

Outside the very front of the property, a knee high, once white picket fence marks the border, with closable gates and well worn tire tracks leading to the shed. The shed that is made of flat board wood has peeling yellow paint and big doors that open towards you if you can find the key to the padlock on the front of them.

The weather board beach house sits at the far end of the cove, away from the fishing pier and main path to the local pub. Although small, it would still take a good forty five minutes to walk from one end of the beach to the other. Each end impassable by foot even at low tide; the steep cliff faces around the corners a warning to stay in paradise.

And that’s where you will find me.

Time Travel

A previous discussion about time travel has got me thinking. When it comes to the genre of sci-fi, does the ideas of it influence life? Or is it the other way around?

It’s almost like the chicken and the egg analogy. Did someone first write a crazy idea about cordless telephones and motor cars, and from that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone? Or was the telephone invented and then some practical thinking person decide how nice it would be to walk while talking on the telephone?

As a journalist, I believe that we are the first documenters of history. To have that taken away through the actual practical invention of time travel would be absolutely devastating. Besides, if everyone already knew what was going to happen, there would be no need for the news.

Do we know as humans already know that one day we are going to discover time travel and so therefore human history has been lived with this one event in mind? Have we as race never achieved anything extraordinarily possible because we all unconsciously know that we can get the answer – as soon as the boffins invent time travel?

Personally when thinking about these ‘bigger’ issues, life really gets put into perspective. Fate, karma, and the rest of all that come into play. If we start thinking too hard about out actions and decisions, then the ‘what if’ game gets played. And that’s no good for anyone.

There is this brilliant television advertisement that always makes me laugh and gets me thinking. It is for the job website Seek, but puts the question out there as to why as humans we have a need to know what’s over there, out there or up there? The answer; because we like to seek.

Apart from the fact that the advertisement is trying to get people to look at it’s website, there is also that message of ‘why is it we have to know what’s out there?’

Not to sound too corny, but I think because we seek, its what makes us human.