At the airport I’m sitting at Gate 34, staring out this large window and watching planes take off from the tarmac.

I think: I wish the reading went better.

And I decide I don’t want to do any readings for a while.

That I want to work on this book exclusively and keep working until it’s done.

I check my iPhone.

I think: I should Facebook message Lisa.

I Facebook message Lisa.

I message, ‘Hey.’

Lisa and I met during this online reading hosted by Steve Roggenbuck on Spreecast.

I’d decided to read this short story that I’d published in Voiceworks called ‘Cunt Angel’.

‘Cunt Angel’ is about this guy who sees this girl at the pub and the girl is sitting next to this other guy who has a tattoo on his bicep that says ‘cunt’ and the first guy starts thinking that maybe he will also get a tattoo on his bicep that says ‘cunt’ because this would impress her, and he begins imagining going to the gym and becoming her caveman and doing push-ups and sit-ups and eating jars’ worth of peanut butter spread on toast, topped with Creatine powder and washed down with milk, and he imagines going to the beach and wearing Speedos and how she would look at his chiselled bottom and torso while he arranged their towels and how they would marry, and eat at Michelin-starred restaurants, and how, after dinner, they would walk together with his arm around her waist, freshly coated in fake tan, and how, if she wanted, he would crush leaves and debris beneath his feet in order to make her a new perfume and how he would coat this perfume on her like war paint and how she would sit very still and moan and how she would ask to sit on his back while he did push-ups, which would give him an erection because he would think she liked the feeling of his rigid spine on her pussy even though she could not feel his rigid spine on her pussy because she was too busy moving her hips back and forth trying to get a better view of an even buffer person through the window and how she would begin touching herself while staring at the even buffer person through the window and how the girl would come on his back and how the guy would come on the concrete because he thought they were in love and the whole story is not so much about bogans but how love is fragile.

Lisa had sent me a Facebook message asking what else I was working on.

I said, ‘I’m working on a novel.’

Lisa told me to send her something.

The only thing I’d finished was this chapter about September 11.

I said, ‘It’s not funny.’

She said, ‘Send it anyway.’

So I sent the chapter.

She said, ‘Oh, right … yeah. That’s not funny.’

And I said, ‘Yeah.’

She said, ‘But it’s good and, like, things don’t have to be funny to be good.’

I’ve never met Lisa but we talk online occasionally.

She lives in Melbourne.

I’ve been through most of her Facebook photos.

I’d like to meet her.

Like, in person.

I think we’re gonna do that soon.

I mean, soon I’ll ask if she wants to.