And Even More Times I’ve Almost Died
Swilled by Will Tickner (he/him)
CW: Drug use
Let it be clear—I’m a man of many mistakes. To call myself intuitive would be a lie, and for a friend to say that I’ve an ounce of critical thinking skills would mean that they were being held at gunpoint. I’m Will Tickner, and I put the “will” in “last will and testament.” I pull onto the highway without indicating. I invite strange men to my flat in the dead of night. I drink so much coffee my bloodstream is sponsored by Nescafe. Some mistakes I’ve made have led to brushes with death, but there’s always character development to be had, and lessons to be learnt. Back by unpopular demand, here’s some more recountings of the times I’ve almost died.
Cats: The Bruisical
Unfortunately, I’m a theatre kid. Fortunately, it’s a great excuse for the question I’m usually asked, which is ‘why are you like this?’ I’d like to formally apologise to those I grew up with who didn’t know—Sincerely, Me.
The theatre company I was abducted by was amazingly well run and supportive, so after a few years of having fun I stuck with it because it was hard to Say No To This. One of the first musicals I ever performed in was Cats: The Musical. That was my first lead role at eleven years old. I was completely zazzed to play ‘Growltiger the Pirate Cat,’ because at the end of his musical number he gets to walk the plank. It’s important to note that the director always went absolutely ham with lighting, sound design, set design, and All That Jazz. The director decided that the plank I was pushed off would be high onstage, and offstage there would be a mattress to fall on. When our show opened, everything ran smoothly … until the third performance.
During the last few bars of my Show Stoppin’ Number, I got ready to walk the plank, and I looked down to spot that the stagehand had forgotten to slide the mattress below me. I thought to myself that it couldn’t be that far, and instead of taking the less painful route of stepping down the long way, I took the leap of faith. Instead of Defying Gravity, I ended up landing without crouching, and folded in on myself like an accordion.
One of the backstage hands saw the aftermath of what I can only imagine looked like that one Peter Griffin meme. Except instead of Peter Griffin, it was a scrawny twelve-year-old in a skimpy cat costume. They helped me up, and I miraculously hadn’t broken my legs. Since the show must go on, I dusted myself off for One Day More. I don’t know how I was able to survive to perform another show. I’ve come to the conclusion that I was more durable in school, considering I now sweat like a fire hose when I walk up Cuba Street.
Lesson: It’s the Hard-Knock Life, some cats don’t land on their feet.
The Worst Morning To Campus
March 13th, 2024. I remember this morning down to the minute because of one person, and it’s not the one who tried to whack my shins.
8AM: My alarm blared. I needed to get up to go to my lecture on campus at noon, and had to catch two buses to get there. I just had a late night, and couldn’t be arsed getting up yet.
8:10AM: My alarm sirened again. I cancelled it.
8:20AM: Another alarm. Giving up, I clicked off my phone for a sleep-in.
11:19AM: I overslept. I checked the time — the first bus would leave in three minutes.
11:20AM: Panic. I grabbed a clean t-shirt, a not-so-clean pair of jeans, and my tote bag.
11:22:AM: I made a mad sprint to my bus stop, just as the first bus arrived. Trying to tag on, my card made that embarrassing beep when you don’t have any cash. I sheepishly loaded more money on and sat down. I thought that the worst was over, as my second bus would be right on time.
11:35AM: My second bus was not on time. I looked out to see it already leaving Courtenay Place. At that point, I was mulling over my options. Either I try to sprint to the next stop before the bus, or give up and not go to campus.
11:36AM: Cut to me, sprinting down Courtenay Place. My sneakers were on the verge of tears, and my macbook was slapping against my hip. I was nearing the next stop outside the St James Theatre and the bus was caught in traffic: I could make it.
11:37AM: An older man in a wheelchair appeared from the alleyway. He had a look of deviousness, and was carrying a singular crutch. He spotted me coming and grinned.
11:38AM: Time slowed. The man stopped his chair directly in my path. He held up the crutch like a golf club, and drew it back upwards. My feet pummeled the brick pathway as I approached. He looked at my legs and he took a hard swing. What would be your instincts in this situation? Take the blow? Hell no. You dodge it. Fueled with adrenaline and my spite for Metlink, I lifted my feet off of the ground. I heard the swish from the crutch below me as I jumped the hurdle.
11:39AM: I landed back onto the path and continued towards the bus, heart pounding as I heard a maniacal giggle from the man behind me. I tagged onto the bus and sat down, puffing.
11:46AM: I arrived at campus fifteen minutes before my lecture. Feeling shaken, I went to get a coffee to help with my jitters. I got into the line at the Lab, and right when I was about to order … some girl cut in front of me. As I weighed whether to say anything, she squawked to two of her friends, and signalled to cut in front of me too. The three of them ended up taking an eternity to order as I stood there in disbelief and anger.
12:07AM: After all of my efforts to arrive on time, I arrived late to my lecture. I did that awkward thing where you arrive loudly and everyone stares daggers into you. I may never get my revenge on the man in the wheelchair. But I can get revenge on the girl with the bad roots who cut in front of me at the Lab on Wednesday the March 13th at 11:48am. I’m waiting to see you around campus for the same reason everyone else will be waiting for me to appear on One News: anticipation of death.
Lesson: High School Athletics Day wasn’t entirely useless.
Tapestry Trouble
Currently, I live in a little shoebox room; I love my little shoebox room. It does its job housing me, and I’ve enjoyed covering every inch of the walls with posters, postcards, and mementos because the minimalist lifestyle is for neat freak psychos.
When I moved into my flat, I couldn’t figure out what to put on the wall I slept on, so I bought a large tapestry. It fit the entire surface area perfectly, and I thought it went with my crazed maximalist vibe. Fast forward to winter this year, and like every single student flat in Welly my room began to get really cold. I bundled up every night, and fought valiantly against the falling temperatures. Recently, I began to get badly ill for a couple days at the time. I wondered where my strange illness was coming from, and just theorised that I was just always catching Covid every other week. That was, until one morning I rolled onto the wall in my room and tugged the tapestry down off my wall by accident.
Horrifically, I looked up to discover that my entire wall was covered in mould. The tapestry was hiding a truly disgusting gradient; light at the top and a dark green as it reached the floor. For an unknown amount of nights, I had been sleeping next to an entire spore colony…a real low point for me this year. After making a very disappointing call to my dad to ask what to do, I tied a tea towel around my face, slipped on some kitchen gloves, and managed to do a massive bedroom extermination/deep clean/bleaching on my one day off. I don’t know how many days I would’ve had left if I hadn’t discovered it.
Lesson: Leave your windows/doors open a smidge to circulate air flow in your room, even in the winter.
Why I Don’t Drink Gin
I come from a family of “drinking enthusiasts.” Not alcoholics, just people who work hard and play harder. And they love to play hard every year at the family Christmas party.
One particular year, my sweet old grandparents hosted in their back paddock. A line of picnic tables had been set up with a large Christmas dinner, at the far end was a hefty drinks table. I wasn’t too excited to be around my family, as I had spent months in the same house as my parents during lockdown. We had just finished a piss-easy game of cricket against my younger cousins, and I had started tweaking from the repetitive “how’s school going?” questions from my aunts. I looked for a way to handle all the boredom. Relief came when I found myself, comically, sat next to the alcohol during dinner. A bad idea formed when I saw that everyone was distracted cutting the roast.
Now sure, looking back, the bottle of gin wasn’t the greatest choice to reach for—but the other options were spare bottles of Tui, or my uncle's homemade cider he wouldn’t shut up about. I grabbed the entire bottle, and quickly poured it into a big plastic cup. Not wanting to get caught, I decided to disguise it with the worst mixer I could’ve picked: Coke Zero. As dinner finished and the sun began to set, I began drinking from my horrible concoction and the whole night began to feel a lot more bearable. However, the night became a whole lot more unbearable for the
rest of the family.
My parents didn’t notice too much right away since they were both hammered. It wasn’t until the very end of the night that they found the empty bottle at the table, and spotted me cussing out my aunt. Realising that neither of them could drive home, my parents enlisted my poor drunken older brother to walk me home. He was an absolute trooper for getting me the two kilometers back through the wop-wops. I don’t remember much of the walk, but my brother later described it to me as the hardest thing he’s ever had to do drunk (this says a lot considering I once caught him trying to explain cryptocurrency to our dad over a box of Somersbys). By the time we had gotten home, I had fully blacked out.
My parents came home in the early hours of Boxing Day to find me passed out a few feet from the front door. I was in a pool of my own vomit, consisting entirely of the bottle of gin, Christmas dinner, and my bad choices. They sadly peeled their plastered child off the floor, knowing that they were raising someone who would never be able to tolerate his alcohol.
Lesson: Coke is not a mixer for gin.
I make mistakes. I miss my bus more than I miss my mark, and I meet with the grim reaper as often as law students do ketamine (too often). My body goes through a panic whenever I’m told I’m loved. I have musical flashbacks when I wear tights. I’m perpetually terrified of people in wheelchairs. However, near-deaths and mistakes are just moments to further the plot, and are always a good story to look back on and laugh at. That’s why I only ever drink gin at Christmas; it’s now tradition to have a glass with the aunt who I said looked like a “frigid bitch.”
Stressed and depressed with lemon zest,
Will Tickner x
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