Nature-Human

The Mystery of the Tram Stop Dishes…

by Xiaole Zhan (詹小乐)

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Perspective: Tram stop #13 – Gatehouse Street

Get directions: 37°47’32.4″S 144°57’30.8″E

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When did that first bowl appear? Under the tram stop seat painted flaking green. Right on the concrete, so incongruous it might as well have been like drawing your knuckles against stone right into a shock of bone. I recognised the generic mass-produced porcelain and congealed fruit yoghurt… details I gleaned from eavesdropping on the conversations of College kids who flocked to my stop. Such is the life of a tram stop right by College Crescent, a stone’s throw from Melbourne Uni.

Next was an unfinished mug of tea, again the unmarked white porcelain, the same crockery dispersed among a hundred teens. Two weeks later, a plate and a fork, residual oil from scrambled eggs and bacon rubbery from the bain-marie.

Of course, I had my theories. You see, the culprit somehow evaded me. My attention would wander across the road for just a moment, captivated by the lanterns glimmering at the door of St Carthages Church. Recently, I noticed a man sleeping every night on its steps in a tattered sack. The churchgoers who opened house in the morning would bring him a banana or an apple, stopping for a few minutes to chat as he gathered his scarce belongings and headed up toward my dear colleague, Morrah Street #12 Tram Stop.

At that point, I would lose sight of him. I could only hope he would safely return again to spend the night in his tattered sack at the steps of St Carthages. I could only hope he would wake again in the morning to an apple, or, on particularly good days, a Subway roll left by a generous bypasser. When my attention finally drew me back to my own flaking green seat, the culprit would have struck again! Oh my! You can’t imagine my bewilderment!

I had my theories. I imagine the College boy late to class, grabbing breakfast to go while running to the tram. Dumping his dishes beneath my seat like at a parent’s kitchen sink. The street cleaners would be left with the unenviable task of disposing of the porcelain like single-use straws. But what else could they do? Their guesses were as good as mine as to the origin of these mysterious dishes. At night, the dishes would glow, winking in the moonlight. Oh, how their mystery taunted me!

Again and again, the man from across the street, laying down in his tattered sack. Again and again, unwashed dishes dumped under my seat, disposed of by the next week. It was a miracle. It was a mystery. It was like believing in the tooth fairy.

Perhaps the whole world is a hotel room reset each day for a single boy. He wakes up in clean linen, dreams of manicured lawns. His bath towels await him, folded into swans.

5

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