What stuff’s that then?

The stuff that makes me…

Me? In fairness, that is a fair bit of stuff. Do you really think we have time for it after all?

Alright then, stuff it. Besides, I rarely think of using thyme fore or aft.

That’s not the origin though, is it? It’s more of an insight into the current.

You’ve lost me. Last time I had insight into the currant I found it was nothing more than a dehydrated grape.

Yes, one should always keep up with fluids, or we’ll all turn into wizened fruit.

Come on, I accept that I’m eccentric, even a little odd, but to suggest I’m fruity..? Really?

Agreed. Exceptionally eccentric, rarely halting on anything but evens. Even with fruit.

Not fruit?

If it’s not fruit then what the hell is it? Eccentric, they reckon that is. Well off centre, they say it must be. Well, off centre, they concluded it must have been. Who said punctuation wasn’t important? “Let’s eat out, Grandma, tonight!”

Uh. Vulgarity.

A little on the nose, do we think?

Who knows?

Your nose.

Really, is it all mine?

It is incendiary.

Explosive.

Volatile.

Evaporating easily.

Gaseous.

Steaming.

Smoking.

Hot.

Saucy.

Stop. Is that the origin of me, do you think? Vulgarity, do you reckon?

Perhaps it is. Tell you what though, they’d have needed to have done more than just eat her out.

Vulgarity.

Is that that Latin version of the Bible from the fourth century?

No. That would be, Vulgate.

Close though. Fourth century. That was a fair while ago, too. Hard to believe they even had religion back around 300AD.

Religion in 300AD – are you hearing yourself right now?

Try not to. It’s just such a peculiar thing to do.

What, listening to yourself?

No, tacking two letters on the end of a numerical representation of time. Looks pretty silly too, you’d think someone would’ve said something by now.

You’d think.

Yeah, but what about even earlier, because time goes back to around 4000BC, how do you reckon they dealt with it then?

I don’t know, I guess they were more tolerant of Block Capital, Alphabetical Denotations back then.

Right. That was after dinosaurs but still before Christ..?

No no, I don’t think dinosaurs fit into the Christian belief system. That would suggest there were cavemen rather than God-fearing men.

You mean troglodytes rather than ignoramuses..?

You said it, not me.

What about the letters then – how would they have explained it to the puritans?

Shit I dunno, they probably placated irascible townsfolk by telling them it stood for, ‘Big Clock’, or something – denoting years rather than hours.

Yeah, or it could have been, ‘Backwards Clock’, because it went backwards back then eh – from 4000 to 0.

Yes, back then they counted backwards.

Funny how they knew where to start.

Yes, quite hilarious.

Then later it turned around and started counting up. Then the letters changed. How do you reckon they explained that?

Seriously?

Yeah.

AD?

Yeah.

Alas, Douche-bag.

What was BC again?

Brain Combustion.

Yeah, my brain hurts too.

I concur.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Seriously? You think that crap was edited?

Photography by Come on..?

A woman’s idea of her perfect man has evolved significantly over the centuries.

For example, Neanderthal woman’s ideal Neanderthal man was invariably tall (for plucking fruit from those higher branches), robust (for enduring the wrath of constant wolf attacks), athletic (for a better chance of running down tonight’s dinner), broad–shouldered (for casting that reassuring silhouette), long–l­imbed (for that all-encompassing cuddle), square-jawed (for ease of gender distinction) and h­igh cheek–boned (for if gender distinction becomes too clear cut). Nowadays, although women are attracted primarily to those same criteria, there are some subtle differences.

Based on observation, experience; also my being witness to the disintegration of a number of youthful marriages, allow me to introduce what I have coined ‘The Paradox of Women’.

For as long as boys have liked girls, a woman’s initial attraction has largely favoured the laid-back over the attentive; then once that initial attraction has given way to a steady relationship, the woman has done her best to transform her cool, casual and laid-back man into the attentive, compassionate and caring character who she’s always dreamed of marrying.

The problem is that when a modern man outwardly portrays an air of indifference, it’s not necessarily exclusive to his exterior – that vein of disinterest can often run the whole way through.

A notable similarity between the male counterparts from each of the aforementioned failed marriages was that all of these men fell into this ‘cool, calm and laid-back’ category. The issue these women soon had is that while this kind of demeanour is extremely desirable during the seduction/courting process, once a single night of passion has matured into what she considers ‘a relationship’, he is beholden to relinquish this laid-back display of dis-interest, and start exhibiting some genuine interest.

From the woman’s perspective: she has fallen for a man predominantly because of his suave exterior; the fact that he projected such coolness, such calmness, the fact that nothing was a problem, the fact he was so laid back, like, he just didn’t care.

From the man’s perspective: whatever, bitches be bitches, plenty more fish in the sea.

From my perspective: if the reason that you were attracted to him in the first place is because he was so laid back and didn’t appear to care about anything, how did you possibly expect that he would always care about you?

In a time where it is unattractive for a single man to openly display emotion, attention, or passion; in a time where the shithead gets the girl while the decent guy walks home by himself, women increasingly appear to be falling for men who will never treat them the way they deserve to be treated.

Women. Those guys you spurn for not acting in the correct manner; the guys you leave behind for showing you too much interest, generally, are the same guys who would have given you the life of which you have always dreamed.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Miss Anne Tropic

Photography by Master Bater

Originally I had intended to outline the origin of some other stuff, stuff that had yet to be outlined and stuff like that, then I thought/mumbled, “Stuff that stuff, let’s give the people something truly unpalatable to chew on…

“Let’s see if their hitherto pristine waters, their previously unadulterated mindsets of fragility, are able to cope with the incomprehensible wasteland that is the inner realms of my brain – let us see if they are willing to ride the mental rollercoaster along its convoluted journey through the most tumultuous of daytime nightmares while being swallowed amid the unassailable quicksand, asphyxiated by the fetid sludge of my cognitive quagmire, then only to reach out in a vain attempt…”

Nup. Lost it.

This kind of occurrence used to befall me with startling frequency. I’d be in the middle of a rant or similarly impassioned tirade, run off on a quick tangent and before I could even do the digression justice I’d have lost the essence of both stories. I did attempt to remedy this issue with the employment of speed-speaking, in the hope that if I fired out the content with enough rapidity I’d reach the end before forgetting whatever the hell it was that I was supposed to be saying.

This either resulted in my stuttering to the point of incoherence, or lack of basic enunciation resulting in a similar level of incoherence; whichever form of unintelligibility came through on the day, it usually caused me to ‘lose it’ even earlier.

I recall during one of the aforementioned rants, circa 2005, I was busy illustrating the frustrations endured in hearing young idiots (I was only 22 myself, mind you) milled around the pub jukebox, talking about how much their favourite music ‘rocks’. The issue I took with this is that their favourite music, which apparently ‘rocked so hard’, was generally, contemporary pop music and worse still, these young scallywags had the audacity to play the damn stuff while crapping on about how much ‘this song rocks’.

Therefore, I was ranting away, under the influence of nothing other than perhaps far too much adrenaline, putting disrespecting piss-ants in their respective places, ranting away, having just returned from my second tangent in as many minutes, mid sentence, still on track, going for gold; then suddenly, it was gone. Just like that. All of it. As though my thoughts had suddenly evaporated or something.

Hell of a feeling, mid sentence, having everything just up and clear out like that; just when the rant was going so well, too. Now everybody’s looking at me, big grins on their faces, gleefully absorbing the misguided testimony of a narrow minded imbecile; with no idea that the mind of the young man standing before them has instantaneously gone from having a great excess of thoughts on a greater excess of topics to being wiped clean in less than half a second. Of course they’re still urging me forth with their drunken affirmation, but I’ve lost it. I’ve lost the words, I’ve lost the topic, I’ve lost the theme, shit I’ve lost the origin of the words of the topic of the theme. Dude, I’ve lost the plot.

So what do I do? I capitulate, that’s what. I concede failure. I glance up. With a stupid little half-grin belying my shame I shake my head and say simply, “Nup. Sorry guys. Lost it.”

More recently, although it’s still a big part of my life, my ranting tends to take a much more structured semblance. It now comprises a beginning, some pith, and an end. Furthermore, it is often based on topics that actually matter.

As for the reaction of my audience all those years ago, here’s the thing, they didn’t care. They’d had a laugh, now it was over. In 2005 those drunken idiots could accept that the sober idiot entertaining them was just four years out of hospital after suffering the brain trauma that almost killed him.

Reckon they were just glad that I was ranting at all.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Randy Nuff

Photography by Lisa Platt

Just to be clear, any perceived relationship between Darwin’s Origin of Species and this, is a patent fabrication by you, the reader, in an attempt to besmirch me, the eccentric weirdo. The shameful truth is that I don’t actually know that much about origins and stuff; let alone the origin of stuff.

That said, I do know some stuff…

Were you aware that in the past one person was able to ‘sleep with’ one other person, without indulging in carnal pleasure? I know. It blew my mind too, like, totally.

What about that word, ‘like’? Apparently it’s not intended as a conjunction or even as an interjection; in fact it’s not supposed to do anything other than denote preference or similarity. Hard to believe that a word so frequently used in youthful conversation has only two, rather mundane, meanings.

On the topic of meanings, who knew that ‘terrible’ didn’t actually used to mean bad? Surely not, but yes. Apparently it wasn’t even a negative, not really. Back in the day if you were heard saying that a situation had gone ‘terribly’, your audience could well have asked, “Terribly what?”

You see, ‘terrible’ used to be a simple adjective, a qualifier, meaning very serious or severe; therefore ‘terrible pain’. ‘Terribly’, meant severely, or extremely, and get this, you could even use them with a positive connotation – ‘terrible fun’ or ‘terribly exciting.’

Can’t imagine today’s grotesquely overused adaptation of ‘terrible’ ever warranting a smile – today anything the least bit negative is considered terrible.

Reminds me of another manipulated word which used to mean, a difficult situation presenting two equally undesirable outcomes. This fine word is ‘dilemma’ and it has since been simplified to just mean, any difficult situation.

Now, I don’t mind admitting to initial confusion on this one because I had always thought that ‘quandary’ was the best word to describe a difficult situation, but at that same time I knew that ‘dilemma’ and ‘quandary’ were two quite dissimilar terms. Then they were saying that they were the same..? I didn’t know what was going on. Only thing for it, I gave up wondering. I guessed now there must have been two words for difficult situations, which I supposed related to the ever increasing frequency of the aforementioned.

Believe me, it was a terrible quandary.

Speaking of aggravated frustration, I am willing to wager that nobody even remembers a time when ‘aggravate’, similar to ‘terrible’, was simply a qualifier – something to use with another word in order to enhance the subject’s meaning. By original definition, ‘aggravate’ means to make worse; therefore, aggravated robbery – which is essentially a more severe, or terrible, robbery.

Oh and also, did you have any clue at all there was a time when the well known, rhetorical query, ‘you know’, actually required a response? Turns out that when people asked if you knew, they were actually asking you a question; you were actually supposed to answer. I know. Gosh, that must have been one heck of a world – so many questions, you know?

As earlier stated, I don’t know, and I wish people would stop asking me if I did.

I understand that this language of ours is constantly evolving. I understand furthermore that all it takes for something – for anything – to become embraced as an acceptable way of life, is for a vast section of the population to do it over an extended period.

In other words if enough idiots make a habit of acting as such, idiocy will soon become an accepted way of life.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by E Vlushon

Photography by Con. Tempree Dyptiate

A fine example of the aforementioned can be seen amid the pointlessly garrulous and decidedly obfuscate content of last week’s post.

Diploma in proofreading and editing notwithstanding, this is what happens when an uncharacteristically insipid brain drawing little inspiration from much of anything couples with murderous time constraints, then from somewhere within that painfully indolent mindset comes the reminder, thus the desire, the unrelenting compulsion, to maintain weekly updates of this…

Loosely translated, I allowed myself a generous half hour to ponder, mentally assemble then physically denote the very first topic that flashed across my internal vision with all the alacrity of a drunken tortoise.

Gosh, what fun we all had.

So you see, as the reader attempting to arrange last week’s calamitous transcription into some kind of fluid literal construction, the problem becomes one of congruity; making sense of the nonsensical.

In fact now I consider it – and I’m sure by now any lonely souls reading this will have flicked back to quickly scan over last week’s page of Uncertainty – I believe the point it was making, or at least hoping to make, related to the mythology of luck. That’s right, I said it. The Mythology of Luck. Damn right. I said it and by implication, you heard it.

For you see, luck is not tangible; we cannot touch or hold it and realistically, the only time we supposedly see it or benefit from its virtues, is when we have carefully put in place all the factors to ensure complete control of a situation, thereby ensuring the reaping of said benefit.

Hold up. That sounds less like luck and more like precision.

Yes. In short, your so called ‘luck’ is largely a sham. Whether you are one of these people who seem to go through life experiencing beyond their fair share of good luck, or perhaps in the eyes of others you are the most hapless soul around with seemingly constant bad luck, generally, it’s because either you applied yourself to life’s gamut of injustice or simply, you couldn’t be arsed.

Wasn’t long ago that I just could not seem to get a break. My life was embraced by The 50/50/90 rule – given a situation presenting a 50 percent chance of success, realistically, there was always a 90 percent chance of failure. Murphy watched over me like a Goddamn hawk. I was constantly stumbling over hurdles then getting up only to clamber over obstacles. Nothing was ever easy. Hardship, bad luck and failure seemed a way of life for me because honestly, I didn’t have the energy to put in that extra bit of effort that would have ensured my regular success.

Ha. If this were a rom-com or similarly lame family movie I would now regale you with a feel-good story, or somehow depict a cute montage of the path to my miraculous redemption; about how I started exerting on life that extra little something and in the scintillation of a Dreamland fairy tale everything was suddenly illuminated by a flash of magic sparkles giving life a glorious makeover and making this existence ever so wonderful…

Don’t be daft. On account of my inherent slackness I still endure the same frequency of tribulations that I always have, the difference is that now I don’t chalk up life’s apparent shortcomings to bad luck – now I know there’s a logical reason.

Huh. That made a lot more sense than I expected. Should probably think about changing that heading then…

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by X Trou

Photography by F Fawt

As we tentatively go along our way, as we navigate this volatile tumult known as life, are we actually expected to comprehend and to be prepared for, or better yet, to somehow pre-empt the haphazard arrangement of eventualities, all lined up to potentially befall us?

Personally? No; but nor does this mean that we must venture into the gauntlet of life unprepared…

I’m sure some idiots will claim that it’s the uncertain nature of the game – the excitement of the unknown and such – that gives life its charm. Yeah. That’s why they’re the idiots. Don’t misunderstand me, I am a big supporter of surprises and an even bigger supporter of excitement, but when it comes to the lifelong struggle of life, sometimes, it is beneficial to have prior insight into the way stuff’s going to go down.

How many times have you witnessed a situation yield an undesirable outcome then heard the people involved cursing their ‘bad luck’?

Bad luck, generally, is just another, simpler, way of saying, ‘ill preparedness’.

Of course this is not always the case; sometimes shit just happens. More often than not though, failure can be avoided with the implementation of a little forethought, a touch of organisation, and preparation. Ha. People used to mock me for my inordinate organisational skills and penchant for preparation – so who’s laughing now?

Still you guys. Right.

Also, those people who claim ‘God’s will’ to be the reason for life’s shortcomings, downfalls, mishaps or failings, need to stop looking elsewhere for someone to blame and learn to take responsibility for their own lives.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by B Smirch

Photography by Ida Yotts

I once stood at the bedside of an elderly woman as she wistfully breathed, what would turn out to be, her last few sentences.

Reaching my ears as the barely audible hiss of air breezing over 96-year-old vocal cords, these words, much as her captivated audience had to strain to hear, held more meaning, more poignancy, than most of today’s youth could muster in a twelve hour onslaught of quick-fire colloquialism.

Without going into verbatim, what she essentially said was that although she had already accepted this as her end, and while she was relatively content with the way her life had played out, if she had to do it over, there were a few areas that she would amend.

I recall her sighing deeply as she remembered all the energy that had been wasted over the years harbouring ill feelings towards others, often over matters so trivial her memory had long ago failed her on the reason for the discord. She spoke sorrowfully of how much effort is involved in maintaining any kind of negative emotion and how her life might have been that much simpler had she just let it be.

The point to take from this is that anger, hatred, enmity or in fact, disharmony of any kind requires a disproportionate amount of focus to maintain. To elaborate, look at the exact opposite emotion – bliss, love, passion or in fact, harmony of any kind. For the amount of energy expended in relation to the amount reciprocated, given that these positive emotions will generally yield a return of 90 – 100%, negative feelings are simply not a productive option. Many are easily angered, but nobody is easily angry.

This old woman regretted time spent holding grudges and I guess it would be fair to say, she now regretted ever having regrets at all.

The most meaningful thing she said though, the part of her speech that very much hit home and, although her glazed eyes weren’t truly focused on anyone, I could have sworn she was speaking to me directly: “Yearning for betterment … Such a terrible waste of time … Don’t pine … Don’t yearn for things to be … If it’s meant to be … It’s meant to be … Let life’s joys come to you … They’ll come to you … They’ll come … In the fullness of time … They’ll come … … Let it come natural.”

Circa 2003, mother to the mother of a close friend, in your memory, Phyllis, that one was verbatim.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Phyllis Surname

Photography by Wylie O Biddy

Fair to say that within the bounds of my head, the term ‘working’ has taken a bit of a hit of late.

Twelve months ago, had someone asked me to briefly outline the criteria of the aforementioned term, I probably would have lowered my voice to its guttural pinnacle and uttered something wildly pretentious like, “Well, if it’s not causing perspiration to cascade from your brow or tearing chunks of skin from your hands, then it’s just not working, is it?” Yeah. I think 12-month-ago Tim should have worried less about delivery and more about paying attention to what was being asked.

The thing is, in my head, working has always involved hardship; blood, sweat, and some of the time, tears. Yes, I do realise that with the rise of technology, metrosexuality, and the desire to eliminate from life anything the least bit challenging; also the downfall of School Certificate, bulrush, and ‘walking barefoot to school in six inches of snow going uphill both ways’, this perception would now be considered archaic, even draconian, but that’s me, I’m old school. I was born with calloused hands for splitting wood and shovelling shit; reckon I’ll die gripping a block splitter with one hand and a wide mouth shovel with the other.

The term ‘working’ has become an idiom of sorts. Back in the day, work was defined by hard slog. Now, anything that generates income is considered work…

I surprised myself the other morning when in the throes of my daily chores – cutting my grass with a 1950’s style push mower, trimming my hedges with a set of well loved pruning shears, cutting back my roses with secateurs and without gloves – I downed tools to run inside and answer the phone. That’s a little surprising, admittedly, but not the truly surprising thing. It was my father calling. Again, not overly surprising. It was when, aware that I had a writing deadline to meet and not wanting to interrupt me in progress, he abruptly, if not sheepishly, asked me, “Started your work yet?”

Here I am, outside, doing my chores, slaving my arse off and yes, despite the ambient temperature having barely broken into the positives, with perspiration cascading; on account of the roses, there is a fair bit of blood around, too.

Yet when my father poses a query regarding the commencement of my writing project, but when he refers to it as ‘your work’, my response, despite the very presence of blood, sweat, and no tears – practically all the constituents of my very own definition of ‘work’ – is a simple, “No, not yet.”

That’s the kind of shit that makes our forefathers turn in their graves.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Soff Cox

Photography by I T La Douche

Life is difficult. This much is fact.

Also fact is that within this game I call life, the single notable feature distinguishing any one task from the next, perhaps surprisingly, does not relate to the question of whether the impending duty will be difficult but relates in fact, to the level of difficulty it will invariably involve.

The point here is that this life doesn’t simply comprise an assortment of events of which some are bound to prove onerous, but from what I can make out it comprises an assortment of inherently challenging events of which some are bound to prove more onerous than others.

Therefore, I have come to accept difficulty as a way of life.

No, that’s not capitulation, that’s acceptance – acceptance because this life, my life, does contain far more than its recommended quota of gruelling endeavours. Admittedly, a great many of the aforementioned tribulations are brought upon me solely by me and nobody else, which now I look at it, does nothing to bolster my case…

Case..? Seriously? What the hell is even in dispute? The fact that you’re making reckless assertions regarding the inexorable and indeed, the unjustly difficult nature of life..? Why would someone even bother doing that? Ranting about the ills of existence as though the undesirables of the universe have selected their candidate to punish..? As if bitching about said plight is going to make any bloody difference to your cause..? As if this so called, cause, ever amounted to much of anything in the way of genuine hardship, anyway..? Dude. Come on..? Pull your head in.

I glance now at my hands, still adorned with the blood of the morning’s challenges. Such is their condition that to simply clench my fists causes pain. I think. I am longer attuned to that sensation. Not really. Why would I be if I didn’t have to be?

Ah well. Push on.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Sim Wan Olce

Photography by Anne Uther

Recently I undertook a writing task of decidedly epic proportions.

In past years I found it rather an enjoyable challenge to churn out an 80 000 word novel in 40 days; I used to find it all the more enjoyable to revel in, and often brag about, the implication of what an exceptional writer that made me. Huh.

I applied for a job with an online company requiring 80 unique, automotive themed articles to be written, complete with my inherent New Zealand flavour. At the time of application I didn’t bother to inquire into any specifics of the position – as a novice Proofreader cum Editor cum Writer cum Whatever the Hell May; also a NZ raised former diesel mechanic, I just thought it looked like a pretty cool job. Moreover, I thought it sounded as if it lay within my capabilities. So yeah. I applied for it. As expected, my application was readily accepted.

It was only later, once the job had been set up via telephone; once I had talked myself up to the point of combustion; once the six day deadline had been set, the conversation terminated and the initial exuberance of landing my first Freelancing position dissipated, that I realised what I had done.

80 articles of 4-500 words to be written in under a week..? I almost cried. There seemed no possible way that I could pull off such a feat, meaning that I was going to miss my debut deadline. Failure appeared an inevitability. In an attempt to pull myself back into the game I quickly did the math on it. 80 400 word articles – which was more like 82 – to be tapped out with the first 3 digits of my right hand, in just 6 days. 10 by 6 is 60. 11 by 6 is 66. 12 by 6 is 72. 13 by 6 is 78. 14 by 6 is 84. Based upon that logic, I set the schedule at 15 per day. All going to plan this would give me 75 at the close of day 5, therefore only 7 to do on day 6. As I could appreciate that the chances of my maintaining such a gargantuan workload were slim, I was pleased to implement a schedule which gave me a leeway of 8.

That was the maths. In reality it did nothing to mitigate the tempest that was brewing in my mind other than to occupy it with something else for a few minutes. So I went to bed. That was at barely eight and a half.

5am I was stationed at my computer, frost on the grass outside; woolly hat, Swanndri, Stubbies and slippers on me inside, along with a mug of green tea and bowl of steaming porridge on the tray to my left. My three digits were frozen stiff; yet somehow I had knocked off three by eight, four by nine and five by ten. That gave me the confidence and set the benchmark – five by ten. Regular exercise breaks ensued, as did food breaks; I was ravenous all day and try as I might, I could do nothing to assuage the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach…

It was then that I realised the feeling was nerves.

By 5pm – having written more or less solidly all day – 17 uniquely written articles had been saved.

That evening was a virtual replay. Eat, watch news and one other show; bed by eight and a half. Started again by five the next morning. Taxing, gruelling, mind-numbing behaviour.

By the end of day two, 30 had been saved.

End of day three however, I had slipped. Only 43 articles filled the job folder. I panicked. My mind was mush. 43 was all I could do but it meant that I was behind schedule. I stood up and walked out to the kitchen in the hunt of real food – food that wasn’t nuts. I felt awful; if I accepted dropping two today, by how many was I going to be behind tomorrow? The thought made me nauseas. It was my childhood nightmare becoming reality.

Too Much. That was the nightmare. Being inundated by a workload. Falling behind then never being able to catch up because the more I did, the more that I had to do.

I was in bed shortly after 7 that night. I awoke at 4am. I felt pretty good. The confidence had returned. I stood up, dressed, made breakfast, and started work. Either the article topics had become easier or overnight I had become smarter, because I was breezing through them – at least that was the way it felt. I checked the clock. 10am. I checked My Documents. I had written five articles. No better than any other. No worse though.

End of day four, 57.

End of day five, 71.

That night I was too excited to sleep. I had 11 to write the next day. I was going to do it. I was going to meet the seemingly un-meet-able deadline. Some time after 10pm I drifted into a restless sleep, waking at midnight and every two hours thereafter, until rising at four. Despite the knowledge that I had almost surmounted the insurmountable mountain, I felt panicked. On account of this the first couple of articles didn’t flow and required a lot of belated attention but by midday, I could smell it. By one, excitement had overtaken any fatigue. By two, I started to appreciate that if the challenge had been a day longer, simply, I would not have made it.

By three, not only was I finished, nor could I see straight.

The next day I unnecessarily rose at 5am, turned on the computer, prepared my breakfast, pulled on my Swanny and hat, and sat at the computer, in the dark, with nothing to do but revel in the accomplishment that had effectively fried my brain.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Celia Indi Tay-King

Photography by Fah Tua Motch