The car finally burned out around three. The blue beacon of a silent patrol car threw new shadows into the street turning the window into a flickering monitor screen.
I'd seen the kids torch the vehicle before I left on a nightly surfing run to a cybersex site in Chile. It wasn't as if they were getting rid of prints, everyone knew it was them. They didn't give a shit. They just wanted to see the flames, to throw a bit of light on a situation.
I looked up the hill at the spread of the estate. The streetlights glowed like campfires of an army on the eve of battle or fireflies trapped in the canopy of an immense jungle.
Jungle, young mental jungle,
Here in the jungle, in the jungle
Where men don't cry and husbands lie and you never have to justify a kickin'.
When mates jump in to save your skin if a chib is ever pulled out in a square go.
Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it's over.
Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it ends.
Oh here she comes round again, here she comes round again,
Here she comes round again, here she comes, here she comes.
The glazed eyes of porcelain clowns stare skywards at clouds of goldfish madly circling their own silent plastic worlds, high above the children who stuff ping pong balls like pills in the mouths of slowly rotating heads.
Intentions true as the arrow's flight
Wins a cuddly toy to while away an evening.
Outside this ring of light he'll claim his prize,
She'll sport lovebites just to prove to all he's been there.
Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it's over.
Jungle ride, jungle ride tell me when it ends.
Oh here she comes round again, here she comes round again,
Here she comes round again, here she comes, here she comes.
I crept along the edges of the parade, staying glued to the shadows where the dogs slept uneasily on their chains under the caravans.
I followed the drums and the pulsing light until I came across a clearing in the cent(Moody river moody river)
Moody river more deadly
Than the vainest knife
Moody river your muddy water
Took my baby's life
Last saturday evening
I came to the old oak tree
It stands beside the river
Where you were to meet me
On the ground your love I found
With a note addressed to me
It read dear love I've done you wrong
Now I must set you free
No longer can I live
With this hurt and this sin
I just couldn't tell you
That guy was just a friend
Moody river more deadly
Than the vainest knife
Moody river your muddy water
Took my baby's life
I looked into the muddy water
And what could I see
I saw alonely lonely face just
Lookin' back at me
Tears in his eyes
And a prayer on his lips
And the glove of his lost love
At his finger tips
Moody river more deadly
Than the vainest knife
Moody river your muddy water
Took my baby's life