76th email

From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Sunday June 13th, 1999 15:06PM
Subject: Coming down

Okay, I’m coming down hard. You too I bet.

But it was great to bump into you at the dance party (what did you call it) The 1999 annual glow sticks and herpes ball. Small world, hey.

And I’ve been thinking about the question you asked;

“Was I there because of you?”

I’ve been thinking about this for the past couple of hours and I’m actually not sure. This was my thought process:

It was a Saturday night.
I didn’t have anything to do.
Elsa (flat mate) asked if I wanted to come. I thought about it. I had never been to a dance party before. I’m a little Amish about hallucinogenics. I’m a little bit of a control freak - as you’ve probably guessed.

I’d also hate to giggle while raising a barn (and deep down I’m a little scared of men circumference beards)

But whatever. Fight your fear, right?

So I took the drugs.
I was still a little scared.

Then I felt good. I felt really good.

I loved my teeth.
I loved washing my hands.
I loved those dancing around me. Though didn’t think of them as individuals – more like a one big person.

I loved the music - Buscemi, Fila Brazillia and demitri from paris…

I loved the moon. I really loved the moon. Thought it looked ‘like a big boiled egg’ as you’d say…

Then I saw you and Marcus. I loved you too.

Of course I guessed you might be there. But I didn’t look for you. That wasn’t the point. I guessed I might bump into you. And if I did that was a bonus (oops - wrote boner there initially).

But, after all that and deeply reflecting about your question – was I there because of you?

Answer: I don’t think so.

That being said – what a beautiful dawn, hey? It was chilled and pink and marvellous. I had such excitement of the new day – a new world. And you looked so happy with Marcus. His shoulder really suits your head.

But I do feel a little shitty now – tried washing my hands again and it wasn’t the same. I might go back to bed.


Dom

PS Elsa thought you seemed like a really nice person btw.

71st to 75th email

----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Thursday, June 10th, 1999 23:41 PM
Subject: RE RE RE RE New string of conversation

Sounds cool…when?




----- Original Message -----
From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Friday June 11th, 1999 9:37AM
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE New string of conversation

Well, I know it is short notice but what you doing over the weekend?

Saturday night I’m free.

My flatmate, Elsa is going to some dance party – so she won’t return until 8:00am (all happy and thirsty with glow sticks in her back pocket and herpes on her lips)

You can dare my cooking if you want or we can get takeaway if easier. My shout.


Dom

PS sorry for mentioning herpes and food in a matter of sentences.

PPS sorry for putting them into the same sentence.




----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Friday, June 11th, 1999 16:51 PM
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE RE New string of conversation

Damn – sorry Dom busy Saturday night…we’re going to a dance party too…would you believe...maybe the same one as your flat mate…

The Annual 1999 Glow Sticks and Herpes Ball, right?

What about next weekend?




From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Saturday June 12th, 1999 11:01AM
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE RE RE New string of conversation

Excellent – next Saturday it is. I’ll do my version of penne puttanesca. Or as it’s literally translated - prostitute pasta.

Though I should warn you my version of penne puttanesca is a cheaper version – so I call it: St Kilda-penne.

Say 7:30 – my address is 4/15 Albert Street West End.

Looking forward to it.

Dom



----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Saturday, June 12th, 1999 14:44 PM
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE RE RE RE New string of conversation

Me too…we’ll bring the wine.

70th email

----- Original Message -----
From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Wednesday June 9th, 1999 8:05AM
Subject: RE RE RE New string of conversation

I think I will die drowning while filming a water safety commercial…
or

Accidentally stabbing myself with a chained pen in a bank as I cash a birthday cheque…
Or

Dying of old age at my computer while waiting for some massive cartoon attachment that’s not even funny…
Or

Being beaten to death by an idiot while wearing I’m with this idiot T-shirt…
Or

Misjudging the time and being hit by a bus that I thought I was running late for.
Or

Tripping and smashing my head on the footlights as I run onto the stage of some profit share production of Waiting for Godot yelling at the tramps – stop this show it’s killing me!
Or

Forgetting how to breathe for that minute too long.
Or

Electrocuting myself as I try to make a boat out of toast in the bath.
Or

Mistaking the sign that reads ‘koalas cross here at night’ as a caution to motorists not as warning about rage.
Or

In Italy. I don’t care of what. Just wouldn’t mind dying in Italy.


Dom

PS And speaking of things ‘Italy’ (gotta love that segue) I adore those Italian Thrillers too.

Crisps (the guy whose party we met at) is a real trash fan – I think it comes from being British and a childish curiosity about the Video Nasty boom. I think he listed and sourced them all.

He shared it with me and I got obsessed too.

And at the fear of sounding educational again (I so want to be Mr Chips. Indeed so did Crisps. That would make him Crisps Chips – message to self; do something about you’re a.d.d for Christ sake, Dom – and do something about talking to yourself in print too – Jesus!)

Anyway those Italian thrillers are called Giallo films (Giallo meaning Yellow – like the faint stained yellow pages in airport pulp books).

I’m kinda obsessed with them. We should watch a couple together. Let me think of two cool ones and I’ll get you and Marcus over for Spag’ bog’ and Euro sleaze.

69th email

----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Tuesday, June 8th, 1999 21:37 PM
Subject: RE RE New string of conversation

Dom, actually I have thought about how I’m going to die…

I hate to admit it, but I have…

I used to I think I’m going to die in the next war…but that was flippant…

then I wanted a heroic death…a true ride into oblivion…like diffusing a bomb…saving lots of people…and being obliterated…

then I thought that maybe my moment of heroism should be smaller…maybe it happens when I see a child crossing the road…and I dash across the traffic, push them out of the way and get hit by the car instead…

I really thought that would be the way I’d go…

When I was sixteen (fuck it…I’m looking back again, but whatever) I used to stand on the side of the road for hours waiting for the child to cross into danger…I was so prepared…willing it to happen…and every time the pedestrian crossing finished its call of safety, I looked up and down the street looking for that kid-like Charon skipping my path to the river styx

(btw had to look up Charon and how to spell it…always thought it was Sharon who guided you across the river styx…felt a little disappointed that it wasn’t…because I really liked it was Sharon…felt cosy…think it was because I really liked this aunt who was not an aunt called Sharon when I was growing up…)

When I was eighteen…I revaluated my death moment…

I was really getting into sleazy Italian thrillers…and I loved how the women died in them…

I thought that would be cool…black handed killer in a mask chasing me down some really stylish corridor…I nearly escape…but find myself in the reddest room in the world…crash zoom and some glorious Morricone music and I’m stabbed in the heart…really stabbed…I fall to the ground and see his shoes….only his shoes…patent leather…and as my breath runs out, I see it fog on his shoes…getting harder to see until the smudge is only a small puff…then nothing…

But I started having nightmares…so this passed too…

Then I hit nineteen and I really thought I might die of an overdose or something…
Chelsea Hotel and some folk fucking around…me doing it…keeping up with The Joneses, you know…and there was this guy there… a real drug slut…his name coincidently was Jones…and there was something so damn sexy about the bones in his chest and his lank fringe and his stove pipe pants…and the nicotine stains…and that morning small of bourbon…

But I ended up meeting a real life Jones (his name was Pete) and in real life all that smell and dirt wasn’t romantic at all…it was so boring…and he was the worst lay I ever had in my life…

So as I near my twenties…end of the month as it happens…here I am…and now I think I might die in my sleep…that’d be pretty good.

And you? You asked the question, buster…how do you think you will you die?


Stacey

68th email

----- Original Message -----
From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Sunday June 6th, 1999 20:28PM
Subject: RE New string of conversation

Stacey – how are you? My name is Dom. Not sure if you remember me. We’ve met a couple of times now. Anyway that’s the past and we all know what happens when you dabble in the past –

First you take your time machine.

Then you go back to the 1950s where you meet William Wyler on the set of the film Roman Holiday.

Then you convince him to stop doing so many takes and change the ending so Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn actually get together this time.

Then you travel back to your own time you discover that Hepburn and Pack are still together but their romance has died.

Damn you world.

But that’s not the worst of it.

Because of you meddled of the space and time continuum - there is now a sequel to Roman Holiday called Washington Workday.

Here, Hepburn abdicated – and married Peck. She moved to America – to Washington and lived in the suburbs. She becomes a good cook but gets lonely because he’s always working and going on interesting international assignments.

One day she starts taking pills and soon she’s addicted to some kinda of anti depressant – and before too long – while he’s away on a trip (ironically in Rome) she ends up dying from some simple but cruel head-hitting fall on the back stoop.

Bad time machine.

So you try again; perhaps as a form of punishment.

This time you use the time machine to look to the future. You set the dials fifty years ahead and arrive at the point of your own death.

You deeply want it to be grand and meaningful – heroic even. But it isn’t. You’re in a hospital bed. It’s not even raining. Two people are by your side. One of them is a nurse. And you just stop.

Bad, bad time machine.

With this knowledge in mind - you go back to where you began – trying to either spend the rest of your life not getting that disease or waiting for the moment of nothingness – always one step ahead.

So it’s a no-win situation.

So you destroy the time machine and berate yourself for using this astonishing piece of technology for rather mundane and pointless reasons.

And from this point on you realise that it’s also pointless looking back and probably pointless looking forward, hey?

So I agree. Let’s fuck the past. Let’s fuck the present and just focus on the now.

Though fearing of contradicting myself; how do you think you’ll die btw?


Dom.

60th-67th email

----- Original Message -----
From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Thursday, June 3rd, 1999 10:42am
Subject: RE RE A new week.

I didn’t know your folks are separated…?



----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Thursday, June 3rd, 1999 18:24 PM
Subject: RE RE RE a New week

Yeah well… I didn’t want to be one of those woo-be-me -girls…you know…



----- Original Message -----
From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Friday June 4th, 1999 9:31am
Subject: RE RE RE RE A new week.

Bit confused don’t you mean woe-be-me…



----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Saturday, June 5th, 1999 22:03 PM
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE a New week

Don’t push it buster…



----- Original Message -----
From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Sunday June 6th, 1999 10:12am
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE RE A new week.

Shit, did I just metaphorically pour another drink on you?



----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Sunday, June 6th, 1999 17:27 PM
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE RE RE a New week

No…made me laugh actually…I did feel like a woo-be-girl for a bit…

And I still don’t want to laugh at you…I know I’m hanging onto things and this a is a new feeling for me…but I am…

See…now I’m changing…and believe me - you don’t want me to change…

Coz, one of the benefits of only living in the present and believing in nothing is that you hold no grudges…

so normally I would’ve let it go… minutes after the event…and we could have started engaging in a new string of conversation…so with that in mind…here’s the old me…and:



----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Sunday, June 6th, 1999 17:32 PM
Subject: New strong of conversation

…a new string of conversation…we can now start again…



----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Sunday, June 6th, 1999 17:33 PM
Subject: New string of conversation

Sorry meant to say ‘string’… not ‘strong’….

59th email

----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Wednesday, June 2nd, 1999 23:00 PM
Subject: RE a New week

Is horror at fang rock the one in a lighthouse…?

If so I do actually like that one. The lighthouse keeper with a beard, huh…? Actually are any of them clean shaven – surely being a lighthouse keeper means you have to have a beard, right?

God, I’m beginning to sound like you…

…If that was the one, I found it really frightening…he had a mad, evil look…and though I actually find ‘doctor who’ really embarrassing most of the time…that one scared me…

I think my folks were splitting up when ABC played it and to offer more punishment I sat down to watch it…I kinda thought me father was the creature…or the lighthouse…daddy’s phallus…or something like that…

Anyway I haven’t thought about it in years…

I actually remember thinking while watching it - well it’s not the end of the world, Stacey…at least you don’t live in a lighthouse or are crashing on rocks…or live in Victorian times…or are being possessed by some evil creature…or are fighting for your life against some inflated afternoon-made monster created by the BBC props department…

…all I am is a chick whose folks are going their separate ways…and good on them…for if they stayed together I’m sure she would possess him or he would try to kill her or both would crash into each other’s rocks at some point…

After they split, I didn’t watch doctor who anymore…see my mother thought TV was generally bad and though ABC was acceptable…she really meant ABC news was really acceptable…so TV just slipped away…

…but I found books then…

my mother approved…and I guess it’s hard to beat bronte…and in a way horror at fang rock and bronte have some connections… rocks, rain…Yorkshire…and a girlish yearn to kiss at least one person in the story…

Oh fuck it…I’ve just reread what I wrote

…I’ve become one of those people I hate…

…talking about childhood and the TV we watched…as if others are interested in kiddie reminisces…and I’m not even drunk…I’m not even trying to find some common place based on try hard pop culture…

See now I’m looking back…shit and fuck…man…how did you do that to me?

Anyway happy to read that you’re back, buster…that’s good…

Happy to read we’re back…that’s better…


Stacey

PS I guess a good name suggestion for your next dog could’ve been Tom Barker :(

PPS If it helps, I forgave you over a week ago…

I forgave you after I read your email about the Hilton…indeed it made me feel more like the monster…it made me feel like I needed forgivness…

So there you have it…Stacey M is actually one of those foam bubble wrap creatures created by the BBC props department to scare the shit out of five year olds on a Saturday evening…hide behind the couch little ones coz here comes Stacey…arghhhhhhh…

58th email

----- Original Message -----
From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Tuesday, June 1st, 1999 6.05 AM
Subject: A new week.
Dear Stacey,

I did opt for number 10. And it’s now one week later.

Weird week too. As you can probably guess I likes me ole email.

So it was painful indeed.

I attempted to watch all the Merchant Ivory films but by the time I got to Howard’s End my flatmate, Elsa found me being passive aggressive to some inanimate objects and subtly sleazy to others (can you guess which?).

So the computer stayed off and I embraced the world (in case I shagged it – give away!!!).

Wednesday was the worst.
Cold turkey. Ate a turkey.

And tried to stop thinking the computer was actually watching me.

Thursday was easier. I ventured out of the house – bought a toasted chicken sandwich and rearranged the second hand records in Rocking Horse from my least favourite to favourite.

That night, I came home and put a blanket over the computer because I swear it scowled at me.

Friday I thought I should exercise - so slept for the day and dreamt that I married the computer in a civil ceremony (Bill Gates gave me away).

Saturday I moved the computer into the cupboard because I swear it was cheating on me with Steve Jobs.

Sunday I chased faith in various churches to see if there is a God. (I think he was running late)

When I got home, the computer had moved. It was now in my bed, begging for some break up sex.

Monday I want to Uni and got into an argument with a philosophy major over Star Wars. Fuck, I hate myself.

I then came home and took it out on the computer – was really cruel to it -– “You think you know everything, but you don’t know how to feel!”

So I put the computer back in the cupboard and locked the door this time.

Tuesday I woke early in a fever, got the computer out of the cupboard and finally turned it on. It refused to speak to me, hovering around dos with that awful blinking silence of the flashing cursor.

Eventually it did speak. It groaned and crashed.

I rebooted it with love, saying ‘there there’ in safe mode and it softened.
And then I e-mailed you.

How has your week been?


Dom

PS I like Doctor Who by the way. Tom Baker really. Have you ever seen Horror at Fang Rock? Cheap as shit but kinda creepy.

PPS So do you forive me?

PPS I really liked your Jenny Wrangler story.

57th email

----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Thursday, May 27th, 1999 21:31 PM
Subject: Hey I guess you chose option 10

Hey Dom…it feels odd not getting an email from you…didn’t think it would…but it does…it’s like the last few days have been biding their time…

anyway…thought I’d drop a short email letting you know…not quite sure actually…letting you know that I’m dialling up and waiting, I guess…

I’ve only got myself to blame of course…unless you opted for number one on my list and you’re currently bleeding to death with two pencils up your snoz…

Anyway, though we are silent, I thought you might find a small anecdote about Jenny Wrangler (the girl I suggested you kill for not including me in her Charlie’s Angel’s club) interesting to help us – well me, really…through the week…

See, I met Jenny Wrangler in my fourth year of primary school…she came from America…she had a brother called Kenny and parents who wore matching tracksuits and didn’t understand the cruel notion of the rhyme names among children…

Initially Jenny and Kenny stuck to themselves…of course they would…the taunting song of ‘Jenny and Kenny’ followed them around the playground like a sick dog…

But after they came back from the Christmas break, Jenny had changed…she had dyed her hair…blonde…and…managed to convince her family that Kenny belonged in another school…because he was getting a little fat…

…now alone, Jenny set about her transformation…

she started wearing clothes imported from America…her blonde hair gradually started showing pink swirls throughout…her voice got that little louder…more earrings emerged…black leather started growing from her body…well her jacket…teased fringes of pink blonde trusses got bigger creating a massive peaked cap over her ivory forehead…sunglasses appeared on her face…even in class…and she traded in pop culture…

see Jenny had access to American television way before it aired here via mailed VHS tapes from her family back home…this power of information was a great tool in trade as she bartered in spoilers for friendship…21 Jump Street…was most desired…

Soon…Jenny had a gang…a powerful gang of pink swirled blondes who actually called themselves the Heathers until they saw the film…

Then the Charlie’s Angels club happened…I so wanted to be part of that gang…and for a brief moment was included…as Bosely…but this didn’t work for me…so in between practised shadowed poses of babes with guns gestures in the afternoon sun by the science block…I lobbied for a position in this far from benevolent tyranny of crime fighting and bitching…

It didn’t work…indeed after my rejection of the Bosely role…I was regularly cast as a villain and assaulted with spit ball pellets fired from air guns…actually not sure if they were air guns…but it was some gun-like device…

Now this daily attack finally took its toll…and I tried to form a Murder She Wrote group in response…a quieter group that was more brain that blonde…but no one really wanted to be part of it…and truthfully one Angela Landsbury is enough for this world…

So I retreated further and started hiding in the library at lunchtime…this worked for me as I was a kid who liked reading…and once you find CS Lewis…it’s hard to renter the world…

After a month or so...Jenny and her confectionary clones backed off and picked on a Russian exchange student (actually I think she was Greek…but the accent was enough for Jenny and her cohorts to believe there was something ’foreign’ and therefore ‘communist’ about her)

The year continued on…and with distance…I became invisible…completely…but in the final week of school, I reencountered Jenny Wrangler…it was a small nearly non-encounter…

but something about it has always stuck with me…not sure why…

see Jenny and I shared the same English class…and this one day in December, I found myself sitting next to her…now we’d always been in the same row…but there was a few students separating us…but this one day, a couple of students were ‘away’ (read; parents wanted an early holiday) and Jenny and I was as close to each other as we’d been for months…

Three empty chairs separated us as the teacher droned on at the front about The Hobbit….I wasn’t into the Hobbit…indeed as a kid I had a sharp sense of feet-fear…so I confess to not listening purely as a tool for psychological survival…

instead I was doodling…notes…musician notes on my exercise book…after about twenty minutes I started to hear a strange soft noise coming three chairs up…it was a kind of sniffle with a staccato violent intake of breath…I looked up from my composition and glanced across the row…

…there I saw Jenny Wrangler…her head was in her heads as the teacher indulgently and blindly read out passages from her self proclaimed favourite book…

I looked more closely at Jenny…small drops of eyeliner stained tears were trickling through her fingers and hitting her blank exercise book in small pools of Rorschach-like black puddles…

…now usually I would’ve dismissed this action as a cheap attempt at attention getting…but this time is was different…it was private…I could see that Jenny was trying not to cry…really trying…and as she fought this misery…I started to feel really sorry for her…

so I gently moved from one seat to the next, taking my books with me…I was quiet and no one noticed…

Over the next ten minutes I managed to get closer to Jenny…her crying had started and stopped a number of times…

finally I was sitting directly next to her…she didn’t notice…I put my hand out and touched her shoulder….she jumped…she stared at me…I offered a kindly smile…but Jenny didn’t smile back…she wiped her tears from her face and snarled at me…

’Don’t you ever tell anyone about this, alright!?” She hissed…

I nodded as Jenny turned her attention back to her self loathing and I crept back to my seat…

After summer…Jenny didn’t come back to the school…no one knew what really happened to her…her family disappeared…and she didn’t keep in contact with anyone…

But one thing always stuck in my head about this odd encounter in English Class in grade four…

as I moved away from Jenny…I saw something written on her exercise book…it was blurred a little with her dark stained tears but there was one thing I could make out on her notebook…one little phrase…it said…

“I don’t understand…”

And from that point on…I understood…I understood that even Jenny got confused…and if she got confused…there was hope for all of us…

Anyway…hope you have a good week and hear from you on Tuesday, I guess…


Stacey