Bonzer Words!: Gone? Gone Where?
...We all missed him at parties. His songs, stories and idiosyncratic view of life added much to revels. At any rate, I accepted the invitation....
Then he was back again, there in the Union bar, drinking, philosophising... But it was to be his last visit as Dermott Ryder's story reveals.
Dermott writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
I hadn't seen him around for some months. We had, in the recent past, been drinking partners, party animals, and womanising legends in our own minds. Then, out of the blue, he suffered a major life-style change and dropped out of sight for a while. The word was that he had found a church-going girlfriend, joined some sort of fellowship, gone on the water wagon and actually started studying. It was common knowledge that he had dumped science and chemistry and, instead, passionately embraced theology, philosophy, sociology, the history of world religions, and God knows what else.
In these circumstances his slightly slurred invitation to join him for drinks and finger-food at the Union bar, crackled at me by my sub-standard telephone service, came as a surprise and suggested that the wheels had fallen off his new wagon, in more ways than one. I suppose, on reflection, I also rejoiced at the thought of a lost sheep, now found, rejoining the flock. We all missed him at parties. His songs, stories and idiosyncratic view of life added much to revels. At any rate, I accepted the invitation.
On the appointed evening I was a little late in getting to the bar but my tardiness was of no concern to him. As I approached his circle he waved a cheery hello. Wineglass in hand, he was in good form. I watched him as, with mock drama, he amused everybody with his mildly insane theories of what he described as 'new-wave cosmic philosophy'.
Every single object in the universe, he explained, has its place in a grand plan, and also has a relationship with every other single object in the universe. So that it naturally follows that a changing state of any object has an effect on the changing state of every other object. Not just here on this miserable planet Earth, he emphasised, but also in the far unimaginable reaches of the unexplored universe.
He presented a very serious and convincing argument with a thought-provoking example that captured our imagination and generated a good deal of ribaldry. As he explained it, if a cow farts in some rustic settlement in the Australian hinterland it is highly likely that it will cause a coalescing of galactic forces. The energy created will send a hot wind blowing, with devastating effects, across the otherwise temperate and hospitable surface of some small, inoffensive world in the Baraxion Quadrant.
Thus, a single act of bovine flatulence, on a blue and green planet in an insignificant solar system, may set in train a series of events that will lead inevitably to the disastrous inter-galactic wars of the fourth millennium.
He paused to chugalug a large glass of Château Frankenstein, and dismissed the example as attention-getting fodder for engaging conversation. Then he turned a little more serious. There is, it seems, a slight gleam of hope for the survival of our kind in the greater universe. Or so he announced with some degree of excitement. He had studied the writings, signs, symbols and mysteries of the ancients. The road ahead was clear to him. A bright universal future could be pre-ordained, well ordered, and almost certain. He used the term, 'cosmic consciousness' several times.
It had something to do with achieving a state of 'oneness' and making the appropriate decisions and initiating the required actions at particular points in time and space. He believed that he had discovered what to do, and how, and when to do it. There was some sort of deeply personal preparation demanded, a rigorous test, and a dreadful penalty to pay for getting it wrong. We all wanted to know more. He had our undivided attention. Unfortunately he passed out.
At first we thought it was the drink. We were mistaken. A strikingly attractive third year medical student, quick to respond, gave him the kiss of life. Perhaps it was that compassionate act that brought the smile of contentment to his face. Sadly, even this last caring human contact could not hold him here. Finally, after a valiant effort, 'third year medical' shook her lovely head and said quietly, "I'm sorry. He's gone." Someone, I don't know who, echoed my thoughts and said, "Gone? Gone where? I wonder."
© Dermott Ryder
