I remember when the nights in Canberra rolled out simple and known, doors lit up, same faces on the front, big silhouettes in black shirts, and you knew the deal without anyone saying it, you stepped right or you got stepped out, quick, clean, no theatre, just the rhythm of it, rough but legible, like a tune you’d heard enough times to hum along.
Now it’s different, mate, it slips around you, all angles and side glances, a maze where the walls move, people drifting through with quiet little hustles, conversations that feel like they’ve already started without you, and you’re trying to catch up, trying to read a room that won’t sit still long enough to be read, and there’s something colder in it, something that doesn’t look you in the eye.
And in the middle of it all are the ones who don’t get to step away, the women working through the noise and the smoke and the half seen deals, carrying the weight of whatever this thing has become, wearing it night after night while the rest of us pass through like it’s just another story.
Maybe it’s not a clash of cultures. Maybe it’s just a different game now, and I’m not sure it’s a better one...