You exist for a moment in ever-changing halls.

Were you created in another lonely room?

A solitary figure stands on a dreamlike landscape—the fuzzy nature of the world beneath his feet is the product of an old memory. The kind that pops back when life throws you a curveball, and suddenly the world feels so open. All too empty are the spaces between us and everything else.

The surface of the piece has an effect almost like the paint is melting off the canvas. The oil slowly descends like rain on a car window, like the artwork sheds tears for its own isolation in the gallery. Just like the man standing alone in the centre of a world.

But he’s not alone, for on the top of his chestnut hair sits another figure. A single parrot nests there, pecking at the top of his head. An act of a symbiotic relationship one would see between an elephant and a myna bird. The bird preens the large mammal, eating the bugs on its tough grey back, and in turn the elephant is cleaned of nasty parasites. 

These are two creatures who, at first glance, have no reason to interact. A mammal of the earth who weighs 6 to 7 tonnes, and a creature of the skies barely weighing 100 grams. Yet they bridge the gap of loneliness and trust each other. They gaze into each other’s eyes, for nature is their connection. 

The canvas of the world is ready for their story to be illustrated upon it. Their souls are the paint; their actions the strokes.

You and I stand together in the centre of a rapidly shifting world. Will it ever stop to wave back at us?

The city of Melbourne is filled with a variety of birds alongside the mynas. 

Crows, seagulls and even the occasional ibis are always navigating the skies like recon drones. 

Lord knows what they’ve seen.

The ones that catch my eyes and heart the most are the humble pigeons. You sweet, kind-hearted souls in pint-sized packages. Flying rats with the hearts of lions. Fiercely intelligent creatures who are grey blurs in the sky, but glisten up close with shimmers of pink, purple and green.

You are a grungy reminder of nature in our concrete jungle. You line the power cables, and bathe in the fountains, where you splish and you splash to clean yourself of the city’s grime.

The only reason you are here is because we abandoned you and left you to rot in our cold, dingy, stinking streets.

You were once the cornerstone of human connection. For millennia, we trained you to deliver everything from love letters to tactics for sieging forts and castles. But when technology accelerated, you were discarded for analogue and digital modes of communication. You were left alone in a world you could no longer thrive in, living in constant states of bare survival.

I wonder how long it’ll be till I join you; when the world decides that the artist is no longer needed and technology can pump out my work via prompts. Maybe we’ll sit together in the park and do what we can with what we have. Two kindred spirits, lacking in purpose.

You remind me of the stories I’ve heard from my mother. Tales of persistence and courage about our ancestors surviving as peasants between worldwide conflicts. They survived occupation from the Ottomans, Austro-Hungarians and Nazis, and eventually came to a country they barely knew. All for the chance to give us a better life than they had.

I watch you hobble with mangled toes and missing legs, but you never give up. You never surrender to the world or where it leaves you.

Sometimes I’ll write in the park before work, and you come to keep me company. You might jump on my foot and balance on my toes, and I’ll try my best not to startle you. One time you even jumped on my shoulder to attempt to rob me of my mini hotdog. Even at those times, I appreciate your companionship. I’m never alone when you’re here with me, and you’ll never be alone while I’m with you. 

In my own selfish way, I’m glad you’re always around to keep me company, even if it means you’re also lost. We can stare at the stars until you fly away, and I’ll keep my feet on the ground, waiting to see you again.

You pitter and patter on the same muddy grounds I walk day after day.

Are we destined to be friendly strangers?

Another selfish tendency of mine is that I love seeing cats on the street. I am more than aware of the dangers you pose to native wildlife and yourself, but your surprise appearances bring me joy whenever I walk home from a long day in the world.

Sometimes you’ll simply stare and walk away. Other times you cautiously approach me, step by little step.

It’s always a delicate dance gaining your trust. You’re a small, cynical, delicate killing machine, and you make me work for your companionship; like the court jester dancing for the queen’s entertainment. I could be a raving maniac off my face on amphetamines, and a dog would still treat me with a heart open and raw. It’s a beautiful trait, but it’s not for me.

I know I must come down to your level. I must offer the scent of my nicotine-stained fingers and await your judgement. Do I pass 

your arbitrary test? How much of our connection 

is down to our own individual natures and their compatibility? Could I have done anything different or was the fate pre-drawn by our own biology and neuroses?

Sometimes the stars align, and you’ll stick around. You’ll begin to circle me, like a shark mistakenly believing a surfer to be a tasty meal.

You’ll come back to my hand with its nails chipped from obsessive tearing and rub your tiny head on them. Their sharpness must scratch your itch jusssst right.

Once you’re done, you’ll circle again, brushing past my legs as you intently touch exactly where you want to. 

You’ll stop in front of me and drop to the ground, as gracefully as an elephant on roller-skates. I’ve always loved the contrast between your graceful and goofy moments. 

As you roll, you look up at me; our eyes lock as the white hairs of your soft belly are open to the world. Not an invitation for belly rubs, but a show of trust that you know you are safe.

Without a word spoken—what people assume is necessary for meaningful communication—we have connected on a brutally cold Melbourne night. One where my lock screen reads 12 degrees, but a chill wind clips my face like a clumsy razor.

That wind sweeps through Glen Huntly Road, a straight line of tarmac that runs all the way down to Port Phillip Bay.

Your mass is impossible for my human mind to comprehend.

Do you want to hold me or will you toss me away?

I have many childhood memories of the sea; you were so formative for me growing up. I can’t imagine a childhood where I wasn’t swimming every other day. It was one of the only constants in a turbulent adolescence.

From afar you seem so vast and empty—as settled as the paint on a centuries-old canvas—but up close you are as active as a fresh tin of paint.

You’re full of life: a petri dish of biodiversity on a planet we named after the soil, despite water dominating all. You’re vast and varied, always moving like pulsing veins. You’re the lifeblood of the world. 

When you embrace me, I know I’m not alone. 

When your waves crash into me, I feel your power. 

When you toss me in a spin, I understand your wrath. 

When you wrap me in a warm current, I feel your love.

When I leave your waters to towel myself off, my skin glistens from your minerals. My hair has the volume and texture that Chemist Warehouse wishes it could bottle. 

When it’s wintertime and the cold ocean breeze is more of a deterrent than a joy, I look to the Yarra. A river we have mistreated and may have to wait generations to see back at its full glory.

Still, you remain a blue oasis in the metropolis. We’ve stuck parks, cafés and stadiums on your banks just to be closer to you.

As I watch you in the early days of spring, I notice how the sun reflects on your ripples. They remind me of the lines that begin to occupy my face as I approach my 30s. But that’s what makes you beautiful, right? 

Every ripple came from somewhere; every bit of movement came from a source. The winds from the lines of a gridded city, the rowing boats that traverse your waterways, and the birds that dive from the sky and plunge into your body. 

Every line has a story, as do all of mine. Some because of trauma caused by others, and some from myself in my darkest isolations. But parallel to them are marks formed from joy: the ones that form around my lips and eyes when happiness can’t be contained. Those moments came from the people I love, and the world that contains all the beauty and sadness I could never fit into one lifetime.

The tides continue to move, like the birds that dive and the winds that blow.

Is your smile painted on, or is it a reflection of your soul? 

Do I look upon you as a picture or as a mirror?

I feel like I’ve been lost in your muted shades for months, pondering every inch of oil and acrylic on your face. I came here looking to reflect on my own loneliness, and to find a piece to reinforce what I believed about myself. I wanted a reinforcement, not a revelation.

But that’s the wonderful aspect of art: that one man’s expression can change how you perceive the world and yourself. When I close my eyes—letting the pace of the world flow around me like a stone in the river—I understand what it means to be comfortable in one place.

There’s a subtle strength in solitude. Not because it’s stoic or brave; stuffing feelings into a ball and locking them away is the least bit impressive or admirable. It’s finding comfort in yourself and how you flow with the rest of the world. It means you are never truly alone.

There’s something so raw in your smile. 

Looking so strong, standing so bare. 

Empathy is your armour, and your heart is your shield.

The world is enough. 

It always was.