30th december

I dreamt I had five cars!
The jeep turns up at about 4pm with 18 tins of beer and some ice. Dave Jr is the driver. He also rolls a couple of joints so we get drunk and stoned. Through his drug induced altered perception of reality, he decides cooking on a wood-burning stove is fun and wants to have a meal. I am starving and I welcome any pastime that is in any way, shape or form food-related. He wants chips so he pours all the available vegetable oil into the frying pan with the intention of deep-frying the chips in the frying pan. He puts noodles in a pot on the other hot plate but the fire is not going properly yet and is only burning on one plate so even I can see that the noodles are going to be a long time before they are ready. He eats half the chips before they are cooked. I eat the other half. They actually taste like what they are - hot potatoes covered in grease, but I'm starving so I don't care. Anyway, grease fills you up between meals without ruining your appetite!
He uses three packets of sauce on the noodles - I usually use half a packet! The fire is struggling so I get some twigs and some cardboard to give it a boost. He opens the stove at the front and blows through the grate. I open it from the side and blow from the side and we are alternating breaths - working well together here... until something goes wrong and I'm ready to blow just as he blows ash in my face. Then, I’m inhaling as he blows again unexpectedly quickly. I poke around a little bit with a screwdriver and the cardboard comes to life with a blaze. He blows again and singes the hairs on my hand. Bloody hell - evolution didn't take this long! I knew it was going wrong and had experience with the stove to do it properly, but it was funnier to participate than to manage.
On the veranda, he's talking crap.
“Hey Dave, can you see that tree?”
You would think that is a pretty stupid thing to say in rain forest! Or in the dark? Especially both! “I can’t see anything, it’s pretty dark.” Had the drugs given him night vision? “Which one?”
“The silhouette. I think it looks like Donkey Kong.” He is making shapes from the treetops’ silhouettes against the slightly lighter sky behind as dusk dies away. He finally manages to explain which tree it is.
I don’t see Donkey Kong anywhere.
“Can you see the owl eating the mouse with a ‘D’ for digital viewing?” he continues.
I can actually see that. “Yep, but I don’t see the ‘d’ for digital viewing.”
“Oh yeah, its there. Right there.” He points. Pointing in the dark at something two hundred metres away, in the general scheme of things, is not a great use of ones time. I can see the owl eating the mouse but I don’t see Donkey Kong eating Barbie. Anyone else noticed the food theme here? Something tells me he is still hungry.
There is a tree much closer to the balcony that has a slender trunk and only sparse branches, two of which seem to reach out to me. In the morning, the dew hangs off a pretty mean looking spiders web worked beneath the armpit of one of the main branches. To me it seems to have arms that are welcoming a congregation.
“Can you see my preacher,” I ask him.
“Where? Oh this one here? That’s a good call. No, wait. That’s not a preacher, that’s a ballerina.”
I look at my tree. A ballerina? Yep, yep, that’s a good one, Dave.
I might let him have that.