*read along with Oliver Mol…if you daaaaare*
Charlie was standing outside “Strange Circumstances”, a new club in Brisbane that had modelled itself on Melbourne’s “laneway culture”. He had not gone inside yet. He’d been standing under the club’s neon sign, something that was partially obscured by graffiti and, oddly, a t-shirt with the print: We’re Full, Fuck Off. Charlie, a bit drunk, had been staring at the sign and after a few seconds he thought: What? This thought was followed by a rationalisation, or an attempt at a rationalisation. He thought, maybe, the t-shirt and graffiti were filters, lenses to view the statement “Strange Circumstances”, some sort of literal Venn diagram. It made sense. He looked around. People were dressed in paisley shirts and black, skinny jeans. He had seen a blog or two. He knew how artists dressed. So this was an “installation”. This was art. But what was it saying? Charlie thought maybe the artist was arguing that “racism” showed its dirty colours–“graffiti”–under “strange circumstances”. He considered Cronulla. Cronulla was a little strange, he thought, if only because it was typical. Typically Australian. These were the thoughts–along with a voice he had swallowed, had sent down, down, down to his stomach, had tried to drown in Asahi except hadn’t entirely drowned in Asahi, that would occasionally resurface, scream, ‘DON’T MARRY THIS GIRL, DON’T MARRY THIS GIRL’–that ran through his head when Mavis came out and lit a cigarette.
Scum Mag 