Nightmare on Sydney Road

Humans are a truly odd race. We strive for ideal lives, aspire to the best in everything, and seek constant perfection in a clearly imperfect world. Our world is flawed indeed. We are a perverse race. We watch the despair and destruction shown to us by the news every day, our ears perk up at the slightest information of someone’s dramas and unhappiness, and we slow down to observe the wreckages that are smashed-up cars on the freeway.




Sometimes we’re lucky and the nightmares we view are far removed from us, as if we are watching them on a television screen or at the movie theatre. We are made a distant observer by our not-knowing the person involved, and ignorance to the situation at hand, unable to really comprehend the pain and anguish that the ‘other’ must be feeling. It becomes a real life play, but one that we can easily turn away from: from our computer screens, our radios and our tvs.



Although we may appear a confused and twisted race, we are nonetheless less perverse than some. Some are so sick and bitter, that their actions are hard to understand from a living point of view. It’s because these people’s motives and actions are so warped, so different and hostile from anything we’ve ever experienced, that we can only understand them from a ‘movie’ point of view. It can only be something out of a movie, we say. But unfortunately in many cases, it is not. It is real, and we are living it, living next door to and walking by these people every single day.



My predilection for horror movies and scary stories has been around for as long as I can remember. From my Mum and Dad’s stories about the mystery that surrounded them when they were young, I have always had a strong fascination for the unknown. I would watch ‘Australian’s Most Wanted,’ and ‘The Extraordinary,’ and then take flying, running-up leaps into my bed, in fear that standing too close to the foot of it would result in some unknown stranger/creature, grabbing me and taking me away to an unknown land of horror.



Stranger. Creature. Kind of one and the same when you think of what they can do.



This fascination has endured my whole life, and though I consider myself turned ‘soft’ with age, seemingly unable to watch a movie at the cinemas without covering my eyes at any footage of dark corridors, ominous shadows and rising, pitching, leading-to-something inevitable music, I am still drawn into this dark world. Angel remains one of my favourite shows of all time; I’m reading Dracula at the moment: yet it scares me. Maybe it’s the adrenaline that comes with the fear; maybe it’s the search for continuous drama. The thrill that comes after the fact is so terrifying at times, and yet I keep going back for more.



As much as these things both scare and thrill me, I’ve been fortunate: I don’t have nightmares, as such. I add these two words because I never dream about witches, ghosts, vampires or anything that’s really after me: as such. I add these two words again, in contradiction to the above, because lately, things have changed.



Sydney Road has changed. Melbourne and its people, and the characters in it, are showing their true dark colours. And its seeping into my dreams at night.



Up until just weeks ago, I didn’t really have vivid nightmares. My earliest recollection of one was probably when I was about 11 years old, of a weird animal-like creature chasing me into my house, and I remember in the dream furiously trying to get my key into the front door and open the door before IT could get to me. My neighbour was with me, and I remember it chased her down the street to her house too.



Days later when I went to her house, I discovered she had had her appendix removed. Upon review of my earlier dream, and with the information that I had been in hospital recently with the intent to get my appendix out, but it hadn’t happened due to certain recent pubescent ‘discoveries,’ I was able to deduce that this creature had ‘gotten’ her, so to speak, but not me. I was able to escape the appendix fairies.



Ever since then I’ve paid a massive amount of attention to my dreams.



If I ever had a bad dream, it was more of an eerie feeling, rather than anything actually happening. A weird lady would be cackling at me, or someone would be watching me. But there was never any fight, struggle, chase, or horrifying monster coming to get me from the shadows.



But you don’t need to dream about it for it to be real. Sometimes the monsters manifest and come for you in real life.



Last week, when the news came out that a Melbourne woman, 29 year old Jill Meagher, had been reported missing by her husband in the inner-northern suburbs of Melbourne after Friday night work drinks, the news spread quickly. Her media-related job helped the case get a lot of notice – from what I heard people she worked with kept giving the story a lot of attention. Her family set up a facebook page to find her, and being on social media, it took off.



She went missing after leaving a bar in Brunswick early Saturday morning: it was just after 1:30pm, certainly not too late by any stretch of the imagination, definitely not for the weekend. Coupled with that fact, she was walking down Sydney Road which is a pretty main road, on her way home – and home was about a 5 minute walk away.



Those were her last known whereabouts.



I heard about the case last weekend, but it wasn’t until I saw her husband on the news on Monday morning that my heart crumpled. He was so distraught, so sad, so upset; he was absolutely shattered. I couldn’t help but think of me and my own husband, and I just felt his pain, right there and then, as he hoped and prayed for any information, for her safe return, for her to come back home.



As the case received more attention, there was a sudden discovery. Police had found her handbag in a nearby laneway, in an area they had previously searched through on the weekend. This told them that possibly it had been planted there, to throw police off the assumed kidnappers trail. Unfortunately, this led the line of enquiry back to her husband, and through repeated questions and an investigative period of over 6 hours at the home he shared with his missing wife, the police came out with a definite “he is NOT a suspect.”



As much as the evidence of them spending so long at her house suggested at it being the other, something inside of me, and of the way her husband had been so pleading on the news, told me he was not the culprit. Family members and friends of the victim are always the first to be interrogated in any tragedy that befalls them, so it was no surprise that her husband would be receiving that kind of scrutiny. We’ve seen it before in other cases: years ago a man was crying out for the safe return of his pregnant wife and young daughter on the news, and days later it was discovered that HE had in fact buried them both. Sad but true, but this is where the investigations usually, firstly lead. I was so glad to see the attention moving to find the real, actual abductor.



When CCTV footage emerged of a man walking up and down Sydney Road, talking to a woman who turned out to be Jill, the investigation and the media response to it turned up a gear. Everyone was talking about it. They still are. I still get goosebumps just thinking about it all. It was only days ago that I was watching the footage at work, the cameras from a boutique store on that road that captured the footpath outside. It showed a man in a blue hoodie walk past the shop headed left, then moments later backtrack and pass to the right. It is believed that before coming onto the CCTV camera, he passed her before we can actually see, and passed the camera. Then he comes back, and comes across her before she reaches the shop. However we soon see them talking in front of it. It’s my belief that perhaps he went up ahead to see if there were any people around, to see if the coast was clear. In fact, there were. The footage shows several people walk past minutes before the hooded man and Jill come into view.



As they come into view again, from the right, it shows him talking to her, and her hovering somewhat behind. She has her mobile in hand, as if about to use it. They move to the left of screen – he is out of the field of vision, but we can still see her, lingering, almost unsure of what to do. They then move off camera, and it is assumed she followed after him.



When talking to a colleague at work about this footage, she told me some theories have emerged online about this hoodie man being the same person who has tried several times to abduct and rape other women around Melbourne. The story used by this man to reel in his victims is to say that they are being followed by someone else, and he is there to help. Although it hasn’t come out what they were talking about, her hesitation shows some degree of confusion as to what he is telling her.



As days turned into more days, hope of finding her alive dimmed. As positive as I am, I know that an investigation like this is dependent on hours rather than days to find the victim. Still, something inside of me hoped and prayed that she was alright, however dim the possibility and the chance of finding her alive seemed to be.



I’ve had nightmares lately. A couple of weeks ago I had a dream about being in a haunted house with my husband, and having intense pressure weighted down on me by an unknown force – turning out to be the ghost who haunted that house. Other times I’ve woken up in a fright because of a feeling that someone is in the room, due to an eerie, weird dream I’ve had. Sometimes it just has to be a scary place, like the haunted house I dreamt about. That’s all it takes.



A couple of nights ago I woke to tell Hubbie “someone’s at the door.” I had heard knocking in the middle of the night, I was sure of it. But he assured me it was only a dream.



Nights later I dreamt of someone pushing me hard in the back. It was an intense, focused push, like a finger digging into my back. In my dream, it was Hubbie coming back from the toilet and pushing me, but when I woke up, screaming out “ahh!” I woke him up beside me. He was facing away from me, and yet the sensation of having someone push me from behind remained, like the feeling of sunburn hours after being outdoors for too long. It lingered, and that troubled me.



I didn’t know where all these dreams were coming from.



Last night, my nightmares escalated. It was night time, I was home alone and in the kitchen, and I could hear someone knocking loudly on our back sliding door. The stranger was yelling that he was going to come in if I didn’t let him in. In realising he wasn’t joking and he could perhaps be dangerous, I crept to the front door, let myself out into the darkness, and began bolting down the street. I kept looking back but there was no one to be seen. I kept running, thinking how I would run to the comfort and security of my parent’s house, but it was at this time that I started to wake up.



It seemed I’d woken up just before my alarm was to go off. I was so scared I didn’t want to get out of bed. But I eventually convinced myself that it was safe to do so, getting up, knowing I’d be late to work if I didn’t.



I listened to the radio with a keen ear on the way, knowing, hoping that surely, there would have been some development in the Jill Meagher case. It had been reported late last night that police had arrested a man after a day of questioning, but nothing had been confirmed as yet, as to whether he was the hooded man in the CCTV footage, or someone else knowing and/or responsible for her disappearance.



It was with great shock, sadness and also relief when I heard the news come through on the hour. Yes, he was the hooded man. Yes, he had been charged and arrested for her disappearance. And yes, they had found her… but not as everyone had hoped they would find her. He had led the police to her body overnight.



The few of us that were here at work crowded around the breaking news broadcasting over the TV, watching in curiosity and sadness the story that had captured the attentions of a city for the past week. I felt somewhat gratified that he had been captured: justice had prevailed, and the police had done a remarkable job of finding the man following a huge media campaign and awareness of what had happened. However it was too late, and knowing that it was probably too late even before her husband reported her missing the day after, was a sore realisation.



It’s a sad Friday morning in Melbourne. Both mine and my friends FB statuses display the sadness that this horrifying ordeal has come to. In the workplace it’s the most talked about conversation, and on the news it’s the feature story of every bulletin. Type in her name on the net, and endless searches about the case and the hooded man’s subsequent arrest abound.



And what have we learnt? What has this told us? That women shouldn’t EVER walk alone… in a world of equal opportunity and fair trial, what does it mean when a woman can’t walk home, 5 minutes to the comfort and safety of her home on a public street? What does it mean when this happens to a girl who lives in a busy neighbourhood, in a suburb you frequent, to a girl of your age, who has only been married as long as you have, and who works at a media organisation similar to yours? Who worked. What does that mean for me, for all women, for the entire city?



My imagination never let me stay secure and in a place of comfort before… I’d always look over my shoulder in my dark morning walk to work, quickly jump in and out of the car when it was night time, and turn on all the house lights as I made my way to the bathroom. I was paranoid and jumpy, just because of my upbringing, because of my preferred choice of entertainment… solely without any real reason for being, other than what I read and saw, what was fiction. Though when fiction becomes reality, and you truly have a reason to be scared… what then? Do you become a hermit, locked in your house, fearful of what’s beyond the safety of your own walls? What if what is dark and disturbing comes to you, as is the case of so many other real-life horror stories?



Thank goodness that damned cursed excuse for being is behind bars. May he be prosecuted, castrated, and all the limbs on his body slowly pulled apart, one by one, until all that remains is a big bloody mess. The universal law of Karma will ensure he gets that, and so much more. He’s hasn’t just hurt Jill, he hasn’t just hurt her family: he’s hurt an entire city.



In time, of course, our wounds will heal. Women will temporarily be on the lookout for odd-looking people, for these night creatures; they’ll travel in pairs, drive each other home with no chance of leaving them to walk alone, and avoid all conversation with randoms.



Time will heal, and with time, we’ll forget. We’re able to, because although it has happened to us, it hasn’t happened to us. As sad as it is, it will remain in the city’s subconscious… and like all things there, it will wane into a distant memory, almost forgotten, something that happened long ago.



And that is a sad thing, because things like these should never be forgotten. We should keep the memories in our minds, because with ignorance comes danger. Paranoia is a small price to pay for safety.



And that is a sober thought in the end. That the actions of a few twisted individuals of society should ruin the well-intentions of the rest of us. No one is safe anymore, and no one is allowed to ask for help, or be nice to anyone.



Like my dream, we can all run away. We can run away from the danger in our minds, push it far away, and pray for the stranger not to follow. We can do it, because all it is for us is a thought in our minds.



Jill sadly, cannot run away. She couldn’t. Her husband and her family can’t run away from it either, for it will remain a walking nightmare for them for the rest of their lives. I pray for them, and hope that they can take some comfort in knowing that justice will on some level be served.



R.I.P. Jill Meagher.

A letter to my boss

To my boss,




In recent days you have sent to our department a multitude of emails. The main point of all these emails is along these lines:



“there have been several mistakes discovered by other shit-faced departments in regards to our highly over-worked department, to which I now have to respond because I don’t have the guts to tell them where to go, or to actually acknowledge on some humble level that all of you actually work heaps and I undervalue your efforts greatly.”



(Of course she didn’t say that whole part, rather the first 6 words, the rest is wishful thinking)



“I would like to mention again not so kindly in CAPS, and break it down for you in an anyone-can-understand-this-even-kids-you-stupid-mofos numbered list, hoping that for once you will actually read this email and I will know if you haven’t because I’m sending a read receipt with it, SUCK.”



(Obviously, I’m over-exaggerating again, but I know what she REALLY wants to say…)



“1. Check fucking everything that you work on, down to the numbers, the print, in fact, spend about an hour checking you are working on the right thing before you even start to work.



2. Along with checking the sun has come out for the day and staring at the screen idiotically for hours on end, just in case, I’d like to re-iterate that you all have sooooo much work to do, so I’d like you to become magicians and find a way to check EVERYTHING on your computer screens, and hey even throw in an organisation routine for your desk for a little bit more pizazz and extra brownie points, but try and do it in the quickest time possible. So check, but skimp on the perfectionism. Got it?



3. Here are the things I want you to check, and I’ve broken it down for you in easy-to-read, itty-bitty points, ARSES:



- Check your screen is the correct width

- Check your screen is the correct height

- Check that your mouse is positioned perfectly 180 degrees to your screen, and at a 90 degree angle to your keyboard. (Your hand must always hover above the mouse, never rest.)

- Auto correct your screen every 5 minutes. If you fail to check in any 5 minute interval, increase the checking times five for your next check.

- Check all numbers on your screen go in sequential order. If not, re-start your computer and try again, repeating all steps above.

Continue this useless checking all day. Yet I want you to do all your work plus more, in about 5 minutes flat per project, because that’s really how quick you should be working. Good, you got that.



Finally, if at any stage you don’t know what to do, simply swivel your back-breaking chairs around and around for 5 times clockwise, then 5 times anti-clockwise, and then repeat all the steps above. If this makes you have to go toilet, don’t. the longer you hold it, the longer you will be rewarded.



This will ensure you are properly efficient and effective in all manners of work required.”





Why, thanks boss . Here is my reply.



A few interesting points I’d like to point out. We are a department predisposed to ‘attention to detail,’ (we’ll try ignore the fact you want us to do the likes of fine tuning an engine in 0.2 seconds). Considering we do a shitload amount of work of various job descriptions (many of them not ours), and churn out tens of hundreds of ‘projects,’ sometimes per day, it is interesting to note how we tend to get things right 99.9999999% of the time, I mean, in the greater scheme of things. Just saying. You know from a ‘positive’ perspective.



In any box of crayons there is always a couple broken ones. Instead of verbally bashing those of us who actually work (never mind me with my constant journaling – I am efficient thanks) why not pick on those who say, for example, um, constantly call in sick, constantly come to work late and then leave, stare at the screen aimlessly and just generally whinge and bitch and moan. Instead on focusing on those of us who actually do work, why not look at the ones who just surf the net, constantly email their overseas friends, the ones who are here, but never REALLY here? Why not send a department-wide email pointing them out, huh? That would be INTERESTING. Especially for YOUR boss to read…



Another good thing to mention. Next time you send out one of those kick-us-up-our-arses emails for apparently just doing our job, why don’t you spend that same day actually doing YOUR job, boss, so that when I walk past your desk I don’t find you:

a) Online shopping for clothes

b) Booking flights

c) Reading about gerbils



Just saying. The ‘do as I say, not as I do’ approach doesn’t really suit you. Like the colour green. Ugh. Don’t go there, really.



Sincerely,



Miss S (and the rest of us that actually work – which today is everyone seated around me, except for me right now.



Right, I’m getting back to it).

Coffee makes me go freaking insane

(Sing along to UB40s ‘Red Red Wine’)




Rich, dark, coffeeeeeee



Goes to my headddddd



Makes me believe that I



Can conquer the worldddddddd…



This is so true. It is Friday morning, I have my coffee sitting at my right, conveniently next to my mouse so that instead of getting back to work I can just reach out and take in some warm and inviting goodness instead. Puh, work. On a Friday? Whatever.



Coffee is natural, coffee is fun, coffee is best when it’s ‘One on One.’



Ok so I’m quoting George now, but really coffee IS natural, and it IS fun! And for the other, well of course…



I’m rambling now, I know. I’m psycho like this. I believe my Friday morning coffee increases my focus and heightens my work efficiency by about 40%. A shame that the only work I do is actually not work, instead my various writing projects.



(I have this post, I have another post in the back of my mind, and I have another journal post to write… ahh! The words are coming at me and I have to get them down!)



Yes. I believe my word frequency increases by approximately 30% after a feel-good caffeine kick-start. I have no research to support these statistics, only my mad mind estimating.



Despite all this extra efficiency and keen alertness, I couldn’t for the life of me work out a math riddle this morning. And my simple equations, I freaking know, my friend:



A work colleague asked me to buy him a muffin from the café where I buy my cappuccino from. My regular coffee is $3.40. He gave me $5.00. When I bought the muffin and coffee, the guy said he’d give me the special price (of course) of $5.00. First I thought, ‘just the muffin?’ until I realised he meant BOTH, combined. That IS special.



So my task was to calculate the muffin price, right, to give my work colleague the correct change back. So $5.00 - $3.40 (being the price of my muffin, so far so good) = $1.60. No! $3.40 being the price of my coffee, damn it!

Ok so if his muffin cost $1.60, $5.00-$1.60=…$3.40. Fuck me. I gave him $1.60. I couldn’t freaking work out the equation standing there half an hour ago with my coffee warming my head. I mean my hand. (Argh) On paper it makes sense…



Ahh! I didn’t even do that right. I gave him $3.60, not $1.60. See? Even then I overpaid him 20 cents. Whatever man, whatever…



I’m so fucking confused right now. Even putting it on paper doesn’t make much sense.



See what coffee does? It makes me right, like all good, and makes me forget my math’s shit…



(The above were two obvious deliberate spelling/grammar mistakes, like duh, like as if I would ever… :) )