Sunny Redfern The Man Next Door Chapter 30

The gap that the man next door made in our back dividing fence is still there, and I've noticed that it's in a straight line between the man next door's back door and our kitchen window, so that from his open back door he can easily see me, or anyone else, at our kitchen sink,.

When he comes outside and sees me he usually says "Hello" as he walks past down the back of his house.

One day he spoke to me as he returned from his back yard.

He said "I've been making a path through my backyard so I can avoid all the cat poo."

"Besides the ginger cat who makes himself at home here, and knows how to get inside, there are lots of other cats who come to my backyard, to poo in all the sand there, and to meet up, or just to sniff and see what other cats have been around. Many of the cats are from The Block, left behind when the aborigines moved out."



ONE EVENING

As I passed the pub on my way to the shop, I was aware of two men talking outside, in the corner doorway.  I didn't look at them.until I heard my name called out, just as I pressed the button, to cross the road at the lights.

The two men looked somewhat similar, about the same height, but the one with the blue eyes was the man next door.

He called out "My development proposal was rejected. The council SQUASHED it!  I guess you will be glad."


I replied "Thats a shame"


He said "I thought you would be glad, because now you won't have to put up with the proposed extensions being built beside your house."

Then he added, "But if my underground room was built you wouldn't have to put up with all the noise from my music."

"Now you will still have to put up with me playing my drums at night".


The lights had already changed to :WALK", and the man next door had moved over and was right next to me, so I had to think of something to say.  I looked at the tall building across the road and got an idea.


I said "Maybe you could build way up high, where you are too high up for your music to be heard."


The man next door: "I don't know whether I will be going up there, to heaven, or down there, to hell".


I said "I don't think I will go to heaven, or hell. I don't believe in them."


The Man Next Door:  "Where will you go then?"


I think I will turn into a flower....or a tree."


The Man Next Door: "That sounds nice."      ...Can you give me some pointers to how I can end up as a tree?"


I replied:  "Be happy".   Be able to sit quietly on your own, thinking and meditating.


Really look at a tree, feeling its presence.  That is how many great men have reached enlightenment. 


Who knows whether you will eventually become a tree.


Of course, when you die, you could be buried in the countryside, in a vertical grave, with a tree planted on top.

That way elements from your body could be incorporated into the tree.


"Thanks!" he replied, and I crossed the road because the lights had changed again.





A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER.


Daughter:  Did you notice the "For Sale" sign that's appeared in front of the extremely fat man's house?


Mother:  "Yes, I got a shock when I saw it. I didn't expect that he would ever move. 





A WEEK LATER.


Mother: The extremely fat man's house has "SOLD" on the sign out the front.

I wonder what he's going to do now.



Daughter: I heard a lady in the street asking him that, and he told her that he's moving to Maroubra, and when I spoke to him in the street later he told me that he's bought a unit there, about ten minutes from the beach, which he intends to walk to every day, to get fitter.

He's been out in the street a lot more than usual, talking to all the people who want to know what he's going to do.


Alpha: He told me that he got over $800,000 for his house, and that the same estate agent organised the purchase of his unit at Maroubra, without him seeing it.

I hope he wasn't ripped off.



Within days a removalist van was parked outside the extremely fat man's house, and a mattress and other items had been thrown out on the footpath.



THEN A FEW DAYS LATER:

DAUGHTER: Some older men have already begun work on the extremely fat man's house.


Mother: Yes, through the open front door I've seen rubble on the red carpet where they've begun to demolish a wall.


It won't be long before the house has been renovated and new people live there, and the extremely fat man will be all but forgotten.


Meanwhile I see the man next door from time to time coming and going in the street, and helping with renovation work on a couple of houses.



Daughter: But work on his own house is at a standstill.



Mother: The only noticeable changes are in the jumble of clutter on his front verandah, the cement mixer, old doors, signs, photographs of the house before he bought it, etc, which are rearranged from time to time, in a slightly artistic way, like an ever changing still life.

The Man Next Door. Chapter 29. How To Save The World

ONE DAY.

As I returned home on the train I once more thought   "How can we save the world from environmental destruction?"


What to do first?


I know there are lots of people who care about the state of the world, and who are trying to take action.

But they are not yet working effectively as part of a major force with power to effectively oppose the very few richest and most powerful people and corporations in the world, who currently get their way, deliberately destroying the natural environment in their ravenous hunger for more and more resources to plunder and use, so they can get even richer, as people continue to consume more and more, CO2 levels continue to rise, and the climate changes.


Our world is dominated by corporations and the global 0.01%.


If the super rich and most powerful people in the world are in such a minority, how are they able to get their way?


I think its because we don't really live in a DEMOCRACY, and also because the majority of people don't care enough about saving the environment.


They are just preoccupied with themselves, and their day to day lives, part of the evergrowing, all consuming,  BULLYGREEDOCRACY we live in.




LATER.

I got off the train and walked towards home, late that night.


The only other people I had seen in the street had turned off at the corner, so I walked alone, and came across a very large spectural looking figure standing on a front verandah, his very white face the same colour as his huge white shirt, as he leaned forward grasping his front fence.


It was the extremely fat man, outside his house.


I glanced at his face as I hurried past, not wanting to rudely ignore him, but not wanting to stop to talk.


He looked confused, either not recognising me, or wondering why I was going past with my bags at that time of night.


I was now almost at home, but I could see something strange and interesting hanging on the front fence of the house beyond our house. So I continued on to have a look.


The man next door had draped crumpled items of clothing all along his cast iron front fence, and also on his window and on the cement mixer, bikes and other items on his front verandah.


I thought:: "Has he hung his washing out here, or are the clothes for sale, or for people to take?"


It was too dark to see the clothes clearly, and I was aware that the extremely fat man was probably still watching me, so I walked back to go inside our front door.




NEXT MORNING.


Mother:   I was very tired when I came downstairs this morning.

I was hungry, and really looking forward to a cup of coffee.

I boiled the jug and put hot water into my cup, intending to just heat it, then replace the water.

But next thing I accidentally put a spoonful of coffee into my bowl.

I washed the bowl, and put muesli in, then put a cinnamon stick in my cup of hot water.

Still no cup of coffee!

This time I put a spoonfull of coffee onto the muesli in my bowl.

The next spoonful of coffee went into my cup.



Daughter: I hope you felt better after you finally drank your cup of coffee.



Mother: I'm still feeling tired.

Do you know what the clothes on the man next door's front fence last night were about?


Daughter: He just hung his washing out there.


Mother: But anyone walking by could have taken his clothes!


Daughter: But would anyone want to?


Mother:  He must have hung his washing out there because his clothes line is no longer along his side of our dividing back fence.


I expect he removed his clothes line when he began to remove palings from the fence.


I was surprised when I saw him doing this, close to his back door, just one paling, then another.


So I called out to him through our kitchen window..."Are you demolishing our dividing fence?"


He replied... "Yes", and added ... "I'll soon build a high brick wall in its place!"


A little later, enough palings had been removed from the fence to allow the man next door to come onto our side deck, where he was busy hammering down loose nails.


I saw him there as I was hanging out washing on our back deck.


He said..."I hope you don't mind, but I have to create a safe working environment, wide enough to move around in, on your side of the fence, while I build the new brick wall.


I hope you won't mind the wall. It will be as high as your back upstairs window, and it will slope down to 2.7 meters high where it reaches my back fence, adjacent to the back lane.


See the high measuring stick attached to the corner of the back fence.


I'm going to build an underground room where I will be able to make as much noise as I like."


I asked..."Why does the room have to be so big?", and he replied ....


"Because it will be full of lots of drum kits. People have complained about the noise I make when I play my drums, but when the extensions are finished you won't be able to hear a thing."


Daughter: I'll believe it when I see it!"