Lost in Pyrmont With Murphy’s Law (Part 1) – Mad Chaos: April 13, 1999

Murphy’s Law Moves In

The day has worn me out, this tiresome mocking day, full of fateful misfortune and infinite defecation to my conscience. What can be said about a couple of hours in which Murphy’s Law lived and lived hard. Let me begin this day of mishaps and mockery with all the eerily good points of the day which in turn brought fate to its knees.

This planning I have endured of getting to sleep earlier has worked to a charm as last night I got to sleep at 10:00 p.m. Just after some comedy I turned off the television and like hoped, I slept like a baby for the next couple of hours. This was the first good sign that would be molested and flaunted by Murphy’s Law later in the day. For some reason, anything that was going good or feeling right was eerie and in my mind I was thinking “This usually doesn’t happen, I bet this nice attitude that fate has is just a mask to ruin me” and so to it was.

Waking up at 5:45 a.m. I didn’t have to worry about sleeping through the alarm because it didn’t even go off. The fact is that for two hours before my waking up I was pretty much awake as I tossed and turned in bed but the former five hours of sleep was enough to tie me through for the day.

Having myself a fair meal to eat in the morning I had myself a shower, put on my clothes and everything went fairly much according to plan. Usually I would have nothing to eat in the mornings but this time I made a conscious effort and this good made me pay later in the day. Leaving the house at 7:15 a.m. I was confident that my day would be good and I wasn’t anxious at all about starting on Microsoft Excel and doing bad or below expectancy. This once again was another notch to my flawless sincerity to fate and in turn it did turn on me.

Catching the Early Train

Making it to the station on time for my 7:30 a.m. train (Which I am always late for trains or buses) I jumped on with plenty of time to spare. However, the ironic part is when I made it to the ticket machine and it was open that early in peak hour morning. However, because I didn’t do any work today a one day ticket would have been a waste of money so fate surely has done something good for me in that circumstance.

For the whole time on the train I sat behind this fairly good looking girl who was reading the book ‘How to make money’ a bit corny I thought. What I didn’t notice but was later told by Lyssa was how Shayma was on the train, the 28 year old who sat on Manpower’s lap. Shayma noticed me all the way to the City as she sat with her friends and now that I think about it I remember her.

Arriving at Glenfield I noticed that Devon jumped on but as he was sitting down he didn’t notice me looking. It would have been too hard to say hello to him anyway because he was midst people and I was boxed in too. When the trip was over I got to the City at 8:30 a.m. and that gave me half an hour to look around for this address. As I jumped up to get off the train I acknowledged Devon and as I made my way to the exit so did he. We talked for a couple of seconds about where I was headed and then I jumped off at Museum Station.

Just before the next paragraph I would like to note that Lyssa was also in the carriage in front of me. This I know because Shayma had informed her of me and I also know that news spreads very quickly at Lyssa’s work. News of me is like hot-fire to the right ears. Devon personally sent DX to Lyssa’s office in the morning so he could see her and also tell her of his seeing me.

Wrong Turn at Unison Street

The next couple of hours is where all my good deeds and happenings came to a sudden half and grinded into rapid reverse. From Museum Station I made a fairly routed but long walk to the start of the Darling Harbor bridge across the water. This I gathered would lead me to my destination quicker than I had discovered on the road maps but I had to make a little adjustment of a street or two to the left. Reaching the end of the bridge I realized that my legs were starting to tire a little bit on my relentless journey.

Now, the woes began when bad mistake after mistake led to anarchy in my fateful day. There was a fork in my decisions in which I had to either chose a Road I knew was called Unison Road or another which went almost in the same direction but was to the right slightly. This at the time was only a small decision where I decided to take Unison Street but in the end, the other street could have saved me a day of misfortune and coming home early and without pay.

Despite my having to work my way right to compensate for redirection I made my way up this small Unison Street and once to the end I thought to take the next street in the same direction. This decision was made because I could see something of a main street and I knew I could get some assistance there if they were needed.

Lost on Pyrmont Bridge Road

Reaching the main Street of what I think was Pyrmont I read a sign that has a map of the streets on it. Originally I was going to head left and way out of my direction because I thought the park I was supposed to go around was in that direction. Luckily I read the map and noticed that Pyrmont Bridge Road was in the other direction so off in that way I went.

Due to my hurried state but with a plentiful amount of time remaining still I rushed reading the map but it confused me with the part I should have been most wary about. Finding my way to the intersection of Pyrmont Bridge Road I started to follow it away from the City and the main street, in the same direction as Unison Street. As I headed past the park I gathered I was going the right way but then when I rounded a bend and came to some houses and a business across the street I knew I was either wrong with my directions or fate was playing a real cruel joke on me.

The address was 46 Pyrmont Bridge Road but on the other side I could read 45 so I decided to head over there and ask them for directions. They were being a tad helpful in telling me that I should continue up the street so that I did. Coming across two business orientated people out the front of their office I asked them too where to head and their answer was a little confusing.

“Well, right now you’re on bridge road” she said, “There are two parts of Pyrmont Bridge Road where it goes for a short while, then onto this road and then onto Pyrmont Bridge Road again”. Giving her the actual number of the road I asked her what side she thought it was on and she responded, “Keep going up the street”.

Fish Market and a Stanmore Sign

What pissed me off about my trek is that I had to walk past a busy intersection and it stunk like fish. There was a fish market right there where I was waiting to cross the road and this put a great damper on my day. As I made my way around the bend I started cussing things like “How much fucking longer do I have to walk” and phrases like “Where the hell are they” but it just didn’t’ seem to help me with my quest.

Finally after an hour of walking and heading more and more into residential area I decided to quit and turn around. My philosophy was if it was in the direction I was headed then I was damned if I would try and get there another day and if it was way back from where I had started then fate had just mocked me. The breaking point for my turning around came when I read a sign that informed me I was headed for ‘Stanmore’, how far does one have to walk for God’s sake.

Hunting for a Working Phone

One hour of constant walking was all I could take and as much as I wanted to endure but there was still the journey to get back to the City. Making my way back down the road I had just walked so far along I kept cussing at my circumstances as I knew I had ruined my chances of an unspoiled day. Aware of my responsibilities to at least try and call the work or the temping agency I looked around for a phone but even on the main street I couldn’t find one.

Blood pressure and my temperature were rising with the exhausting of misfortune and when I finally found a bunch of public phones I was not amused when suddenly they were all taken. With my arrival one of the guys got off but I was just a second too late as someone got in before me. Sitting down on a bus seat that was right next to the phones I waited patiently hoping that one of them would finally get off the phone and do it quick.

Twenty minutes later, some roasting in the sun and heightening blood pressure later I finally decided to look around for another phone. Irony would have it that there were phones just around the corner, not even ten meters away.

As I walked to the phones I knew that Murphy’s Law would play another cruel joke on me and I was right, the phone line was cut and of course, I couldn’t use it now. So much blunders, so much hidden contretemps, what else could contradict what should have been a good day behind a desk being artistic with Excel…

Three Calls and Sixty Cents

When finally beginning to make a phone call there came a guy out of a side door just steps away from my phone box. Not only did it invade my privacy which I so much desire but the broken window which let him hear my whole agonizing conversations was putting me off.

Working through this problem I gave Mandy a call first at the job I was supposed to be temping at. The time was around 10:30 a.m. and after a couple of rings the dial tone changed and my money was wasted on a paging service. Deciding not to page her as there was no way she could contact me I left no message and then decided to call Philippa.

This time I got through to the Receptionist but that’s as far as I got. Both Philippa or anyone else I had written down were on other calls and I again didn’t want to leave a useless message. Little did I know that Philippa was worried for my safety, calling my mum twice and fearing that I had been mugged or something similar on the way to the City.

The third call was made to Lyssa and I know I shouldn’t have even attempted this call as it would mean I was once again forgiving her misdeeds and accepting her my misfortunate fate had a black hand over my actions. Placing money in the machine it was weird how no one answered on Reception but what pissed me off more was that my money got stuck, sixty cents worth. This stroke of bad luck was just topping more and more lucidity on the cake of horror.

Poetry as a Proper Job

Walking away from the pay phone feeling cheated of my money, my life, my work prospects and my day, I felt like that very moment of thoughts was turning around my whole perspective of life. Far from suicide, I knew just how those people felt before they took that last big step into obscurity. This disastrous turn of fate that was so ridiculously predicted in a mocking sense which did in turn mock me, this fate, this moment, the deciding of my life.

Within these moments I was thinking to myself “I will never be able to hold a normal 9-5 job, fate will note let me” and on the contrasting side I noted that Poetry would be the way to go. Poetry to me is like a job that I love doing and do it well. The thought of creating a hard cover book to show examples of my poetry sprung to mind but so far the idea of approaching editing companies that will sell my poetry is only that, an idea.

An Ice-Cream and a Toss Up

With the phone calls out of the way and my feet having had a small rest I pondered my next cause of action. Knowing very well that I would have to make some more phone calls and only having a two dollar coin I had to make change out of it. The heat was getting to me as I walked into a grocery store and at first I was just going to get the money changed but I decided upon buying an ice-cream.

Once bought I only had enough money for two phone calls and knowing I had to ring dad to pick me up the toss up was between Lyssa or the temping agency again. Lyssa of course won the toss because fate wanted to put me down and let Lyssa once again regain her upper hand on momentum. And how I did feel scorned when we walked around, me with a silenced mouth which was angry at myself and Lyssa, content without apologies and with making believe that nothing wrong had ever happened. However, that is a later part of this chronological story and I do grow tired in the eyes even now.