Inspired by Gideon Appah’s Boy with a Bird (2023)

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 the product of an old memory. The kinds that pop back when life throws you a curve ball, 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 in the centre of a world alone.

            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, feeding on the bugs on its tough grey back, and in turn the elephant is cleaned of any nasty parasites.

These are two creatures whom 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, despite their differences of biology. Nature is their connection.

The canvas of the world is ready for their story to be illustrated upon. 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 Myna’s.

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

Lord knows that they’ve seen.

The ones that catch my eyes and heart the most are the humble pigeons. Flying rats with the hearts of lions. Fiercely intelligent creatures who are grey blurs in the sky, but glisten up close with shimmers of pinks, purples and greens.

            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 rid yourself of parasites. You do have a tendency to defecate everywhere, but nobody is perfect.

The only reasons 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 when 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.

            But I suppose as a human I have more choices – I know I can survive the days of AI with my own creative ingenuity, and it is watching you that has helped me realise that. For you persist in the face of the harshest of circumstances, and it inspires me to go on myself.

When you wander my way, and hop onto my foot as I write down my daily thoughts, I know we’ll be okay. Even when you jump on my shoulder to attempt a robbery of my hot dog rolls, I appreciate the comfort of your connection. I’m never alone while you’re here with me, and you’ll never be alone while I’m with you too.

In my own selfish way, I’m glad you’re always around to keep me company, even if it means you’re lost here with me. We can stare at the stars that you will soon fly towards, while I keep my feet on the ground.

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 wildlife and yourself, but nothing brings me more joy in this world than your surprise appearances as I walk home from a long day in the world.

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

            It’s always a delicate dance of gaining your trust. You’re a small, cynical, delicate killing machine, and you make me work for your companionship – like a jester dancing for a queens 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 neurosis.

            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, nails chipped from obsessive tearing, and rub your tiny head on them. I suppose the sharpness of my busted nails scratches your itches jusssst right.

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

            You’ll stop in front of me, where it all began, and will drop to the footpath, as gracefully as an elephant on roller-skates – I’ve always love 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 they are safe.

            Without a word spoken – what we as a society assume is necessary for meaningful communication – we have connected on a brutally cold Melbourne night. One where my weather app claims the temperature is 12 degrees, but the chill wind clips my face.

            The chill wind sweeps through Glen Huntly Road, a tunnel that runs all the way down the beach and the bay that carves out the boundaries of our city. The bay that holds the water that felt like everything in my formative years.

Your sheer mass is only as large as my human mind can 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 you were 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 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 – the life blood of the world.

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

When your waves violently crash into me I feel your energy.

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 skins glistens from your minerals – my hair has the volume and texture that chemist warehouse would love to bottle.

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

Even now you are a blue oasis in the metropolis. 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 have begun to occupy my face as I approach my 30s. But that’s what makes you beautiful, right?

Every ripple came from a somewhere, every bit of movement came from a source.

The winds from the straight lines of a gridded city, the rows of boats that traverse your waterways, and from 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 have come from special people in my life, and a world that contains all the beauty and sadness that could never fit in one lifetime.

The tides continue to move, as the birds the dive and the winds 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 image. I came here looking for a reflection on my own loneliness, and to find a piece to reinforce what I believed about myself. A reductive ambition shared by flat-earthers and K-pop stans.

            But that’s the wonderful aspect of the arts – that one man’s expression changes how you perceive the world, even if the pieces were in your mind all along. When I close my eyes, and let the pace of the world flow around me like a stone in the river rapids, I understand what it means to be comfortable in one place.

            There’s a subtle strength in solitude. Not in a stoic way – stuffing feelings into a ball and locking them away is the least bit impressive or admirable.

There’s something so raw in your smile.

Looking so strong as you stand bare to the world.

Your empathy is your armour, and you heart is your shield.

The world is enough. It always was.