Entry 006 | 28.8.24

I sat down to work poolside and pulled a cigarette from the red and white pack in my breast pocket. The pack was new, so I savoured peeling the thin strip of cellophane away from the man’s neck stoma. I then took out the second-to-last cigarette on the right side of the front row and turned it on its head for good luck. I think I saw it in a movie or show once. Or maybe someone told me at a house party. It’s a load of shit but feels cool. And that’s smoking.

But I rarely smoke. Well, I don’t smoke, really. I hardly make it through a single cigarette. Yet I buy packs abroad and carry the Devil’s pencil case like a bible. Why? It’s not to fit in with the cool kids. Brushing peeling shoulders with tatted Spaniards and dreadlocked Germans. For the taste? The cinnamon candy stick endemic to Indonesia is about as good a steelman as any to persuade one to partake. For that swift and pure head rush? A single 16mg snus offers the simultaneous power of 16 smokeless cigarettes. Outlawed back home by BigVape, but available everywhere here. Stick one under your lip for a swift, tobaccoless high. If nicotine were my vice, I’d look no further. But Shifty! What about a chance at high focus? Electrifying your reward system the old-fashioned way. We built rocketships and wrote epics at the end of a Malborough. We can construct neural autobahns with the forced work of twenty-white-camels under the azure. But neither the pouch nor the cigarette is my choice of mindfire accelerant. No, the real reason I purchase a pack as soon as I step Birkenstock or cracked sole into a nicotine-addicted nation is simple. Cigarettes are the single most excellent social vehicle available to sapiens. And no sooner had I lit my first Sampoerna from that red, white and new pack than a solid-built blonde man with a slow American drawl strolled my way.

Speaking of camels under the azure. Here's one of my favourite shots from Cairo.

‘Mind if I bum a cigarette?’ he smiled, letting the words whisp out as if already smoking.

‘Help yourself.’

In between drags we got to talking. About his trip, then mine. His friends and who I was with.

‘My boys are over there.’ He nodded, eyes on three young brunette men of average and equal height. They were sitting at the other end of the pool, doing their utmost to survive two picnic tables of European women. And my new friend had the same twinkle of opportunity and chaos in his eye as they did. Only far greater. I asked where he surfed that day and where he might go tomorrow.

‘Mawi was all-time, my man.’

We have put cats to sleep at the end of a Malborough. Here's another favourtie from Anza, Morocco.

Before that poolside introduction, a group of us surfed Gerupuk Bay’s Inside Left on a small swell. ‘Insides’ is a two-way, shorter left, longer right reef break with an easy take-off unless it’s throwing. The bay is about twenty minutes outside Kuta village. Fifteen, if you’re quick. I would not recommend expediency. ‘Hati Hati.’ Our Gerupuk board merchant (another Rasta) advises. ‘Tourists, they no drive scooters back home. But ayyyy. Here, they drive. And fast! Drive like local. But ayyyyy, no local. Last year. Or was it two years? No, I think one. A girl, ayyyyy, very bad.

‘Crash?’

‘Very, very bad’

‘Was she hurt?’

‘Bad’

‘That bad?’

‘Ayyyy. Hati Hati.’

If you were here for Entry 002, you’d know 200K IDR / 20 NZD will get you in a fishing boat to one of Gerupuk’s six breaks, then back, with two hours of surfing in between. You can commission a captain outside Rasta’s shop or through a man named Mr. Dee, who is often also outside Rasta’s shop. Rasta is married to his sister and takes a cut. Dee’s captain is his cousin and takes a cut. The captain’s substitute boatman is Dee’s nephew. (More on Dee in the next Entry).

I take cigarettes with me (another reason for purchasing a dry bag) but not to smoke. It’s hardly what you want priming your lungs before duelling with heavy Indonesian waves. However, having them on hand can prove as important as your passport. It is fantastic practice to offer the boat captain one or two before diving in.

A boatman/captain that most definitely smoked, Don Dons, Gerupuk Bay.

Most boatmen smoke. Well, every boatman I’ve met does. Still, I’d hate to add another sweeping generalisation to the catalogue of borderline bigoted, one-brush-one-people, monochrome commentary I’ve offered to date. So yes, they all smoke. And they are all happy to pinch a couple if not a pack. Packs are around 25 - 35K IDR / 2.50 - 3.50 NZD, so you can afford to be philanthropic in the tropics. And I consider this easy gift a matter of paramount diplomacy, as we have a near-flawless record of being longest and last in the water.

If you were here for Entry 001, you’d know certain spots work better in wet season; others are windblown, particularly during the day. But the right night-flirting might marry a clearing lineup with a brief window of cooperative, creamier conditions. It’s like the wind switch flips as the sun dips below the cliffs. An orange moon rises behind rock and clay. Just don’t leave it too late. It’s dark now and spooky. I cannot discern wall or crest from sea. Envisioning ancient beings in the deep makes me rush for the next wave. I ride moonlight ripples across a dimensionless expanse. I have misjudged my ride home. It does not bear the strength to deliver me to the channel. I’m on the inside. My body dipped in ink. My head and arms in oil. Cat eyes dilate as thunder nears: phantom waves and nocturnal foam. Lightning strikes, ignites the clouds. The flash of northern hills. I swivel to face the sea. Where is my board? We are the last here. My board! My kingdom! Where is my boat? Lightning strikes twice. Then I see. Guided like Gatsby, I swim toward an orange beacon across the channel. Or is it the last Sumatran, one-eyed and waiting on the banks of Borneo? Or a lonely kunang-kunang? It seems to flicker. Dart and move and dance in the oil. Are its wings not wet and haggard? I paddle. Mine are. I hear my friends. Soot clouds part from moon flame. I make out my saviour bathed in the ash. A single-lit Sampoerna Mild sweetens his lips. My Lombok Spotlight.

Back to shore, all other boats are docked. Cement steps rise out of black water, lapping against the tide walls. An empty restaurant marbles yellow light over the water. Our captain orders us to disembark prematurely. ‘Push’, he signals with his hands. I hear wastewater flows to where we now stand. I was itchy that night. I could not sleep.

Don't leave it too late, somewhere above Gerupuk Bay.

Sometime after midnight, I rose and wandered to the lobby, where I discovered Jocko, Pipe Hostel’s resident surf instructor and check-in man. He lay on one of two thin mattresses bare on the cool concrete. Another worker, whom I knew as Adikk Ku, lounged on the other. They watched whatever freed their minds late at night. I managed some work from my beanbag. And after all three of us failed to sleep for some time, I returned to my dorm to continue the exercise in solitary futility. Before first light, I rose with the heat and had time to make coffee before heading to Mawi. I had a cheap bag of some Javan-style brew from Papito’s supermarket down the road. It's grainy and unstrained, much like Turkish, only more filtered than thick. Not quite Kopi Luwak good, but still pleasant for its price and less monkey-shit involved. Jocko greeted me in the kitchen in his faded boardshorts, smiling. Many hostel workers are eternal: working a lot, paid little. Always available, always kind. He saw the grey elephant on the black packet and grabbed my mug for closer inspection.

‘Bro yew have it lyk me Luckee’, he beamed, ‘I love this stuff too, so cheap. Lombok coffee bro.’

‘You want one, Jocko?’

‘Nah, I already had too much.’

Jacked up on black coffee with a couple teaspoons of Jocko’s alacrity, I ducked out to the board rack and bumped into an Aussie. In thirty-degree heat, 100% humidity, Max sported a thick mane of black wavy hair, black knitted shorts, a matching knitted black unbuttoned button-up, revealing a broad, cursive chest tattoo and black nails. He would take little convincing. I made another brew to match his aesthetic, and we made a break for Mawi. His antithesis, the blonde South Carolina called.

‘Meet you out back’, promised Jon Jon.

The ride to Mawi starts as a gentle cruise through central Kuta, then climbs above the Air Guling area. You dart past markets and early risers or later workers, climb a twisting chain of hills and find expansive views of Tanjung Ann and Air Gueling. You then slice through farmlands and small outpost villages before turning off to tackle possibly the worst road in Indonesia. Busted tarmac escalates you to a checkpoint where you pay a 10K IDR entry fee: an arm of the nation’s faux bureaucracy you will encounter throughout Bali, Lombok and beyond. Paying to visit the beach feels foreign. But what’s $1 to witness God? On your way to Her, there are more ruts and bumps, and when the rain whips and your lacerated foot weeps, you might half walk, half ride your bike through knee-deep mud, rip away its undercarriage on rock, find small waves breaking over impossibly shallow reef, and swear never to return. But the American had prompted me. I was still nervous to visit. But the Australian was riding by my side, and the sun was keen, and the clouds shy, my memories weak, and my friendships new.

Max and I worked the streets, markets and morning runners. Ascended Air Gueling Hill with ease, then peeled back the throttle. We carved through fields, consumed open country, forced hills to the ground and hunted the horizon. We enjoyed long, flat roads with leaning palms, weathered huts and leathered men wisping by. I led, but Max kept tight, pushing us to make good time and likely arrive well before the American. Hati Hati. We took our final left into Dilapidated Hill and gunned the climb, only easing off to pay the sentinels. Then, bumps and ruts. Dust high, vision narrow, focused only on what’s ahead. Entering a verdue basin, we stopped for buffalo mothers with calves crossing the track, mud cracking on their backs, an acridity in the air, a taste of salt in the wind as we were now near the sea. And then, leaving our bikes on the sand, besides a shack to rent boards and another for chicken noodle soup. And wooden seating and shade. Beyond the umbrellas and loungers, white sands and stone faces plunge into cerulean waters, and wooden hills race out along the horizon. And on a good day, big, steep lefts and rights. You can take off near the inner point, which will discard you into the impact zone. In the middle, the rumour of a wave shapes well out to sea before suddenly arriving as indisputable reality. The right discards you to the same purgatory as the point. The left shapes into a bowl that rises to block the sun and shoots you down a quick and straight blue wall to chase the green coast. It was a good day.

‘Looks nice.’ Max wagered.

‘Decent, aye?’ I asked.

‘Pretty heavy.’ He admitted.

‘Should be okay.’ I hoped.

‘Better time the paddle well.’ He imagined.

‘Looks absolutely electric!’ Jon-Jon hollered from behind us.

By some anatomical superiority, or perhaps that alkaloid power I mentioned earlier, the large American tackled his hour drive in the same time as our 40-minute route. When I spoke to him, he was in bed. Now, he was in boardshorts. Despite being dipped in sunblock, he did not Hati Hati.

One of the better parts of the track leading into the basin, Mawi.

We did time the paddle well and found ourselves bobbing in those cerulean waters amongst a handful of other keen sports. After witnessing a few of the horizon-spitting lefts peel past, the last of which Jon Jon only missed by a few strokes, I called him onto the next.

‘That was the best wave of my life.’

He then went for another.

‘I got fucked on that one, I’m going in.’

I had more success after his departure, taking a few quick lefts and kicking out after a turn. I let many more behemoths go, paddled for my life to get past the earliest indisputable realities and watched some locals find themselves deep. As my energy faded and the sun intensified, I drifted toward the gnarlier options near the inside point. Two of my best looks were snagged by a learner being pushed into six-foot drops by a local instructor.

‘Sorry bro,’ he said, quite genuinely, ‘no good waves anywhere. They pay to have good time. I told them it’s big, but they said okay. Sorry, bro.’

After some time, I paddled in. I met Max under the shade, who had bush trekked his way back over the far point and shared some vanilla-flavoured tobacco he’d purchased in Bali and now rolled as we watched the waves. For the next two weeks, I became good friends with him and even better with South Carolina-bred, North Eastern-educated, Mandarin fluent, and New York investment banking-bound Jon Jon. Despite his all-American pedigree, he corrupted me with true Southern wickedness. We shared cigarettes, snus, surf boats, and much else in common. I might’ve made my way out to Mawi eventually. Our relationship might’ve ignited another way. But it could’ve missed ignition altogether if not for that cinnamon tinder.

And that is why I must defend the cigarette.

Jon Jon looking toward cerulean waters during a lull, Mawi.

One of the many orange spotlights of Lombok, Gerupuk Bay.

Photos 3, 4, 11 & 10 by

Federico Repetto.

My new Italian friend and talented surf photographer.

Camera for hire.

Enquire within.

New short story below

Links & EXTRAS

Our accommodation: Pipes Hostel

Memphis Book Club: TBC.

Essential travel purchase(s): I’m sure you know this weeks recommendation.

Some resources I used: This entry was a lot of unevidenced malarky.

Glossary

TBC.

Snus:

Sampoerna:

Gerupuk Bay:

Inside Left / Insides:

Reef Break:

Take off:

Throwing:

Hati Hati:

Windblown:

Creamy:

Conditions:

Channel:

The Inside/Stuck on the inside:

Adikk Ku:

Papitos:

Out back:

Impact zone/Bomb zone:

Paddle out:

Calling in:

Kicking out:

Turn:

Deep:

Drop:

Looks:

And all is White

A man walks across a new street toward an old shop. It’s raining. He can barely see. The many neon lights halo in the rain and reflect from the puddles on the road. It seems all is neon on the street. All is bright. All except for the small and dark weatherboard shop he now enters. He is holding a shoebox. The door clinks and the entry bell tolls, alerting the shopkeeper to his arrival. Inside is dimly lit.

‘I would like to sell these items.’ The man declares to the shopkeeper’s back.

A tall man turns, revealing a slender face behind a moustache, eyebrows and a monocle.

‘And what could you offer me in that old shoebox?’

The younger man places the box on the wooden bench, gently. The older man’s demeanour improves. The younger man takes a few paces back as if to distance himself from his own actions. He stands straight. With equal care, the old man lifts the box lid. Inside are handwritten notes, bracelets, a few rings, movie stubs, a camera and a handful of medals. The old man’s demeanour sours.

‘This is junk. Personal effects?’

‘They have worth.’

‘Yes, I see. Gold plated, silver, titanium. Exceedingly rare materials but of no practical value today, nor aesthetic. The letters and stubs are from a time of far greater more tactility. They are now unimportant to all but an unidentifiable few. The fact remains that these are mere effects.’

‘They have worth.’

‘To you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But to no one else.’

‘No. Well, yes. But, they have worth still.’

‘Are these yours?’ the old man says with an eyebrow.

‘No. Yes, well, they are now,’ the younger man stumbles, conscripting the courage troubled men seek when threatened. The type that corrupts the lungs on the way to the throat, crackling the voice and wetting the eyes. ‘Listen, I’m not sure what you want me to say here. I was told this was where I could come when the box was left for me. But I wasn’t supposed to be direct with you.

The old man peers down. His eyebrow drops. The younger man’s colour subsides as he realises a small advancement. He clears his throat, steps forward and places a paper slip on the countertop. It has yellowed with age. He then steps backward to resume his distance but does not turn, ‘I believe you maybe have him on file or something?’ He asks when properly distanced from his question.

The old man adjusts his monocle, ‘Indeed.’

Behind the old man and his countertop are shelves of old books. Mostly leatherbound, some not. All of old and deep browns and reds and greens. They reach from floor to ceiling and stretch from wall to wall. All of the shop, the oak plank flooring, green velvet cushioned seats in the corner to the entrance’s right, a wall-mounted oil heater struggling behind the seats, a green reading lamp struggling atop the oak countertop that separates the two men, all is blanketed by dust. All except the old, big books, wooden shelves, and oak countertop. The old man turns to the clean shelves and books behind him, takes a few steps right and reaches for the furthest book on the top shelf. A light from a neighbouring building shines through a small adjacent window, betraying the corner most book to be a rather old and large leather tome. Rain splatters on the window. It’s tinny percussion betraying single glazing. The splatters shadow the spine of the tome. When the old, tall man reaches high, for the shelves rise almost beyond his reach, his arm passes through suspended dust and shadowed rain splatter, and the white, artificial light illuminates his face. He is even older than the younger man had presumed. The tome is heavy in his arms. He wobbles when pulling it down. Turning back to face the younger man, he wades toward the countertop, then drops it with a thud. More dust floats to the ceiling, caught and made white by light from beyond the window.

‘Let me see.’ The old man says to himself. He replaces his monocle with round spectacles from his breast pocket. He opens the book and fingers a table of contents. All is handwritten in black ink. All is silent besides the rain as he settles into his work. Soon, the younger man can hear the gentle hum and occasional clink of the gas heater in the dark corner of the room behind the chairs and table.

After some time and a very few turned pages, he closes the book, fixes his gaze on the younger man, and then opens it again about two-thirds of the way through. Having blindly split the book at the precise page, the old, experienced man licks his lips and glides a wrinkled finger down a waxen page. He runs his skin past line items in black ink.

‘Ah yes,’ he says to the ink, his finger now resting beside it. ‘We have been expecting you for some time,’ he adds, looking up toward the expected man, his voice warmer than before ‘What took you so long to come to us, Mr. Dallas?’

‘Reluctance’, says Mr. Dallas.

‘I see. Well, it’s good you came. He’ll be happy to receive these.’

‘I hope so.’

‘He will.’

‘And your name?’

‘Customers may call me Ron.’

Ron reaches for his breast pocket once more, retrieving a silver fountain pen trimmed in gold. He flattens the left page with one hand and strikes through the item by his finger with black ink. The line is straight and clean. He makes no error nor smudge. He places his pen on the oak countertop, aligning it parallel with the top left corner of the book.

‘I can give you a half day in exchange,’ the spectacled Ron asserts, peering above the thin metal and clear glass, ‘I’m sorry, but as you’re probably aware, the later we receive such items, the less time we offer. It’s been decades. Not much of them is left here by this time, and what’s left leaves expeditiously once belongings are received.’

‘I understand.’

The old man picks up the pen and marks something illegible by the struck-out item. He blows on his fresh markings, then closes his pen and places it back in his breast pocket. He removes his spectacles before having them join the pen. Not without struggle, he closes and returns the tome to its home.

‘Right this way, ' he whistles, pivoting with renewed lightness. He shepherds the younger man with a weightless, gentle wave toward a door behind and to the left of the countertop. ‘You know, it’s good you came when you did. There won’t be many of us around soon.’

‘Yes, I heard you’re the last in the country.’

‘And the best, Mr. Dallas.’

‘And the best. My name's Dai, by the way.’

‘The new generations don’t seem to have the same interest in The Exchange, Mr. Dallas.’ Ron postulates to himself, more than to Mr. Dallas. ‘Not with ‘modern’ technology. They live imagined fantasies. One struggles to return from imagined fantasies, Mr. Dallas.’

‘I didn’t want that.’

‘So it would seem. Date and time?’

Dai passes Ron another old paper slip.

‘But this is not long before the passing? Most customers opt for a more halcyon time.’

‘I have something I wish to say. I understand nothing can be reversed. So it’s best I say it at this time.’

‘Very well.’

Above a brass doorknob is an electronic touchpad. Ron keys a set of numbers on the pad, waits for a chime then turns the knob. Inside is dimly lit. The room is small. There seems to be another low oak table and green velvet chair in the corner. A green reading lamp sits atop the table. You can hear a gas heater's faint clink and hum from behind the arrangement. The room is cold. The lamp struggles.

‘Touch activated, Mr Dallas,’ Ron boasts, then, pointing toward the corner arrangement, ‘the machine itself remains rather idiosyncratic. One of the novels of the past.’ Then, Dai, sensing again the older man, is speaking more to himself, ‘Although it does the job quite well, I can assure you.’ Ron then waves Dai into the small, dim room and closes the door. Remember a similar lamp his grandmother owned, which he adored as a child and which his grandmother had the unquestionable sense any grandmother possesses and left the lamp to him; Dai walks toward the arrangement and touches its cold brass base. He squints when greeted by the absolute whiteness of the room. All is white. He can barely see. His head rings. It’s nauseating. He can barely see. He can no longer make out the lamp or table, nor the chair or heater. He cannot make out the dimensions of the room. Neither the walls nor the ceiling. All there is is white. And then he hears a metallic clink. And then a louder hum. And then again. Clink. Clink.

And all there is is white.

#

A young man wakes to a hand on his shoulder as a train carriage jolts to a stop.

‘You closed your eyes as soon as we left and haven’t moved since. I knew you were fucked.’

‘I must’ve been put to sleep by the train.’

‘Allgood, I had a book.’

Dai could recall a conversation they might’ve had before the train left. Although he couldn’t remember the book's name, it sounded like something Rus would read in an empty train carriage on a sunny afternoon. Central City to the town Dai and Rus grew up in was a two-hour trip with an act of poetic retrograde at the penultimate stop, where a diesel-powered call-back rescues you from the clasps of the electric revolution. They waited on the platform in the afternoon light for this time machine.

‘I always like this time’, Dai said, looking to the sky.

Rus did not look up from his book.

‘It’s better out here. The air’s cleaner,’ Dai reminded the dying sun, ‘I miss these nights. You don’t get sunsets like this anywhere else.’

The train was running later than usual, yet Dai didn’t worry. He was happy. Soon, they heard the hum of diesel and wheels clinking against the tracks.

#

Neither young man smoked, but it was a clear night, and they were on their third quick beer. Dai held out a pale blue packet, a thin plastic film reflecting flames from the tall gas heater in the corner of the concrete patio.

‘We haven’t had one of these patio sessions in ages.’ Reckoned Dai, holding out a light.

Nearby, leaves rustled. Those who had already fallen scraped against the concrete. The air was cool, fresh, charged. The heater struggled, and the night might’ve bit more, but for a few beers and the stoked embers of an old friendship. Dai smirked, clinking the bottle against the chair's rusted aluminium frame.

‘How have you actually been?’ he asks the man of the same age in a very similar chair.

Rus twisted a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. ‘I’ve been alright. I guess.’ then blew the thought out of mind, watching the wisp glide into the night. It wasn’t a sonnet, but the late inclusion of the second line meant there was now enough for Dai to read between.

‘It’s good to see you, man.’ Dai stoked.

‘It’s good to see you too.’

Dai sinks back into the worn turquoise fabric that desperately holds his parent’s rusted patio chairs together. He looks down the neck of his bottle, half expecting to find something to say swirling in the dregs. He takes a final swig. He feels warm.

‘Remember when these things were new?’

‘That feels like a long time ago now, aye.’ Rus said, looking at the sky.

‘Too long, I…’, Dai added, feeling his chest fill with lead, whatever was to come after ‘I’ eviscerated by the oxide now rushing up his throat.

‘Too long.’ Rus added, not looking down.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ Dais voice wavering like a tightrope walker in the wind, ‘you haven’t been feeling all that flash lately, right?’. His feels his chair sink beneath the ground as he holds the weight of the sky on his shoulders. He looks back in his bottle. Nothing is left. A light wind sweeps through the table and chairs. He shivers.

‘I don’t know man.’

‘I know, bud.’

‘I guess, I don’t know really.’

‘It’s okay.’ Dai’s voice, well beyond its years, having already lived a lifetime after this moment, wraps around Rus like a blanket. Rus continues to look toward the clear night and the stars in all their nakedness. His eyes, well. He can barely see.

‘It’s not that serious man.’ The younger man stumbles, conscripting the courage troubled young men seek when alone. The type that corrupts the lungs on the way to the throat, crackling the voice and wetting the eyes.

Dai’s well, too. It is bright. He looks up toward the stars, and they shimmer behind his tears. He can barely see. He tries to look at Rus, but all is bright. He can hear him sniff and clink his bottle against the chair. Before Dai can say more, he feels his feet lift off the ground. He feels his chair lift, too. He can barely see. He can no longer make out his friend, the table or heater. He cannot hear his friend. Only the hum of the heater, then a metallic clink. He looks up and squints when greeted by the absolute whiteness of the stars. He can barely see. All there is is white. And then he hears a metallic clink. And then a louder hum. And then again. Clink. Clink.

And all there is is white.

There were a few beeps and a chime, and the old door opened slightly.

‘I’m sorry, Mr. Dallas. Time’s up.

Thanks for Reading!

If you made it this far, then I owe you many thanks.

Because it’s been a while since the last entry, I thought I’d offer something extra for the keen reader.

‘And All is White’ is a short story I worked on when encountering writer’s block with the journal and procrastinating my contract work. It combines two previous ideas and is an experiment with a different writing style and genre.

If you’re interested in Greek Mythology, then have a think about the names.

As always, let me know what you think.

I believe you can reply directly to this email.

Many thanks,

Lachlan / shiftypeakz

A Passage to Indonesia, Part II: In Defence of the Cigarette

New short story below

Links & EXTRAS

Glossary

And all is White

Thanks for Reading!

Blue Mountains: Ekas, Masculinity & a Quickfire Guide to Surf Equipment

A Passage to Indonesia, Part I: Salt Rush