Hi David. You don’t know me

a text from a stranger

Finally! The fourth part in this series ctrl+alt+delight, or maybe I should have called it ready, steady, BOX, because there is another cardboard box featured in this final post — I promise I’m not shoehorning a theme. The box in question was literally delivered to me by my former housemate’s ex-girlfriend’s best friend. Or, to put it another way: it was fated. Enjoy the unboxing epilogue.

Hi David. You don’t know me

is the perfect way to start a text message from my past

however it seems I may have inherited a couple of boxes of your stuff a few years back

More boxes. Ugh.

I was helping a friend J. move out of her ex-boyfriend S’s place

Names check out. Scammy senses calmed.

it’s just some notebooks and whatnot

And maybe my missing DVD of Lost in Translation?

I’d be happy to bring it to you if you’re still in Melbs

I’ve always wanted to receive an unexpected present of non-essential personal items from my former housemate’s ex-girlfriend’s best friend.

Hi P. Yeah, that checks out. I assume that’s the box my lost passport was in

The past is a foreign country, delivered to your doorstep, in an old pink Huggies Nappies box.

(insert photo of box?)

I’ll drop it off Saturday morning, if that’s alright

And so it was. While I was at work, P. dropped off my box of stuff from a decade and four share houses ago.

So, what was so essential it could be forgotten by me but not thrown out by a stranger?

a set of spare car keys — I’d been looking for them everywhere!

a family scrapbook calendar with a photo of my uncle with his finger up his nose.
He passed away last year

A handmade postcard from my cousin Rosie, from 2012

An unfinished multiple choice personality test

A black moleskin with a list of books I read between 2007-2015

A bloodied first draft of my unproduced play, INDENTED HEAD

The dead name of an alive friend written on a TO DO list

My 2013 travel diary of Japan and Europe

Postcards from Japan, unwritten on, unsent

various travel documents and receipts that hold no real memory

A certificate of completion from the 2015 John Bolton Theatre School, with a slip of paper that reads: David Maney … for his wonderful epic journey from sea to mountains

At the bottom of the box, a photo album: pictures of friends right before our Year 12 Graduation Formal, right before everything went digital

Atop the pile was my passport. Inside the booklet, the sun-ripened face of 21 year old me. Curly hair, full of wandering ambition

And slid inside the back of the booklet, a postcard of a painting: a brown dirt mound and light coming through the dust in the air. A dog’s head pops out of the mound. Their dark muzzle and black nose pointed up — are they buried or taking a break from digging? Has the weather turned on their adventure? I flipped the postcard over.

Dearest Dave

Hello Sally

It feels like an eternity since we met in Sydney

It’ll be 10 years this August

and you revealed your world to me

I remember
jogging along the Sydney cliffs
swimming across an alcove in the freezing seas, and
forgetting to flush your toilet, only for you to find my poo at the bottom of your loo

and then you wrote me a gorgeous letter of poetry

Thank you for reminding me that I used to write poems AND send them to friends

Since then I have started an extraordinary job and am currently touring through Europe

Of course you are! By way of Anne Bogart you once told me: when in doubt, move

I am thinking of you a great deal and your opera debut

Sadly, it never happened. Since then, to quote a poem I once sent you, I learned how to choose my immediate destiny / over my silent inheritances. I’m still learning how to sing. My latest attempt at a novel is about a boy who steals his best friend’s song

sending love from Madrid x Sally x

We may only have had that one day together in Sydney, but the dog on your postcard, returned a decade later, lets me hope there are a few more days in our friendship yet. I’m coming to Sydney in September. And to paraphrase our mutual friend Anne, maybe accidents can be channelled into the shape of a friendship.

Until then, with love and delight, your friend,

Dave x

Previous delights:

Uncled, a meditation on personalised number plates and unclehood
Delight as Revenge, an epic tale of getting my revenge any which way I can
Double-dipping Delight aka Moderately Fragile. It’s about boxes

Listen to the final 2 minutes of the audio for possible upcoming projects. No promises.
Big thank you to Nat Riley for his mixing magic on the sound.