A large model of gray naval ship, as long as two men. I’m escorting it by swimming beside it, against a kind of curb, within a twilight concrete jungle. My companion demonstrates how the bow of the ship, even in gentle water on our floating wooden slat platform, vibrates so profoundly that it’s genuinely unsafe and unusable — why it’s being retired.
I’m revisiting Melbourne, Australia and meet a girl. She wears a dark-haired ponytail and is strange and energetic, youthfully careless but with an edge of urbane worldliness. We have an adventure preforming the mundane task of buying subway fare, semi-drunkenly carousing in a grotty, rowdy corner shop. We end up asleep near a rocky beach somewhere down the subway line. She’d neglected to tell me I had to clock out from the ride (of which I remember nothing) and I’m worried that, on account of it being so long after, all my credit is now expended. She languidly reassures me, no, the maximum is one day… I take it we’ve been on the beach at least overnight.
Later, I’m staying again at the last hostel I stayed when I was there. I remember thinking that I should have chosen The Friendlies, which was my favorite. This one has tall sunny glass walls in the guest lobby, and quite a drinking culture. Reminiscent of the Gold Coast in Queensland, or Florida. A Scottish guy, or maybe just someone doing a raucous impression of one, proves his drunkenness by head-butting a glass table. Not content with simply cracking it, he continues head-butting until the entire countertop of the hostel is smashed. Guy is now quite covered in blood and his friends take him away.