WRITING

The Vape Lord of Queanbeyan 

by

Omar Musa

​

Winner of the Writers' Studio Short Story Prize 2024

 

I was fresh out of rehab, unemployable and future-fearing, helpless and raw as a newborn in a caul, lurching my way through drinking dreams and long baths, back in a flat with a popcorn ceiling and a never-fruiting lemon tree in the yard, living with my finicky sister Sonja, who was ignoring me to watch pimple-popping videos on a cinnamon-coloured couch, when I met first met The Vape Lord. 

​

My mate Alessandro (a bloke who always knows a bloke) gave me the number, and I messaged right quick:

 

—hey!!! this is Shamil.. im a mate of Alessandro!! he said maybe u could help me out??? 

​

The Vape Lord replied immediately:  

​

—Any friend of Alessandro is a friend of mine. I don’t trust many people, but I can tell that I can trust you. 

 

I wasn’t sure how that was possible, from a three-sentence text out of the blue from a stranger, but I wrote back:  

 

—need some!!  

—Stress less. What flavour? Cheesecake or Cranberry? 

—both!!! 

—I got you. Meet me at Guns N’ Hoses car wash in 55 mins. Next to Kingsley’s Chicken. 

—how will I know who u are?? 

—Don’t worry. You’ll know. 

​

The Vape Lord had saved my skin.  

 

Earlier in the day, sitting in the dissolving foam of a lukewarm bath, trying to top it up with a kettle, I’d panicked when I ran out of vape juice. Vaping was the one thing that stood between me and drinking. I was embarrassed to have got into it in the first place; it made me think of Sonja’s ex-boyfriend, a massive flog with David Brentian lack of awareness, who started a Facebook common interest group called “The CryptoVapers.” The thought that I might be considered as even of the same ilk as him made my arse cheeks quiver.  

​

At least analogue cigarettes have a bit of rustic charm. 

​

But vapes had got me through those first weeks back in the real world, full of near slip-ups, self-loathing and jittery Queanbeyan winter days, where trees are anorexic, the sky sky blue and the tips of grass frosted blonde. Any flavour hit the spot – Butterscotch Baller, Lychee Flamenco, Mango Bonfire – as long as there was that sweet nicotine catch in the throat. Time passed by, not easily, but softened my constant companion: what Alessandro called “the robot phallus.” I blew out my cares in cotton candy clouds.  

Problem was, the State Government of NSW had just done a 180, making it suddenly illegal to buy vape liquid with nicotine in it. According to Alessandro, The Vape Lord had predicted the government’s change of plan and seen a gap in the market. He’d bought vast quantities of nicotine liquid, then started mixing up his own flavours in his Karabar basement. I imagined a man with a shock of Einstein hair hovering over bubbling beakers and test tubes. 

​

“He’s more than just a hustler, bro,” said Alessandro with a cryptic look. “Way more.” 

​

As I pulled on my Nikes to meet the mysterious Lord, words I’d heard many times danced in my head: “Your life literally depends on never taking a mind- or mood-altering substance ever again.” It was true. If I drank again, only hell would follow.  

​

“But does nicotine count as mind- or mood-altering?” I muttered. 

“What was that?” called Sonja from the cinnamon-coloured couch. 

“Nothing.”  

“Where you off to?” 

“Out.” 

“It’s late.” 

“Just getting some fresh air.” 

“Bring me back some Shapes, then. Pizza.” 

“Easy.” 

 

These were the most words that Sonja and I had exchanged in a week. As I walked out the door, I looked at the family photo framed on the wall: all of us together – me, Sonja, Mum, Dad – at a time when we couldn’t have seemed happier. I could see that Sonja, on the couch, was watching a blackhead popping compilation on her phone. On screen was an extreme close up of an unidentified span of skin. A needle plunged into a plugged pore and dug out what looked like a hard little garnet. Sonja shivered with pleasure, absent-mindedly stroking the only finger on her left hand that didn’t have a ring on it. 

 

The never-fruiting lemon tree watched me as I walked out the gate and seemed to ask the question again:  

 

“Is nicotine mind- or mood-altering?”  

“Yeah, maybe,” I replied to the lemon tree. “But no one ever crashed a car or king hit a mate ‘cos they were amped up on nicotine, did they? The main thing is that it’s not meth or grog.” 

 

I reached Guns N’ Hoses car wash at 10:45pm and sat on the kerb, breath blossoming white in the winter air. The “O” of the yellow MOTEL sign on the corner blinked as if transmitting a mysterious wartime code. In my twenty years living in Queanbeyan, I’d never seen the sign fixed – it would’ve been weird to see it properly working. I had the same type of feeling as when I was scoring drugs – buzzy, slightly thrilled, like I was doing something illicit… which, come to think of it, I was. I looked back down at my texts: 

 

—how will I know who u are?? 

—Don’t worry. You’ll know. 

 

I clapped my hands three times, something I do when I’m nervous. 

 

Presently, a lowered, teal green Commodore with tinted windows pulled into the car wash. Emblazoned across the side of it, in holographic letters, was:  

 

V A P E L O R D.  

 

When The Vape Lord emerged, I thought I was hallucinating. He was wearing a teal velour Adidas tracksuit that perfectly matched the car, which in turn matched the ghostly grey gum trees behind them, giving the impression of an optical illusion. He had tinted blonde hair; even his beard was tinted blonde. He was wearing a gold Roman coin on a gold chain. His shoes? Also Adidas. And they too were teal and gold. 

 

We shook hands, and I was immediately taken by the look of serenity that he had on his face. He wordlessly handed me a plastic bottle full of vape liquid – Cranberry Carnage – which I filled my vape with and puffed on appreciatively. It felt so good I was almost worried that he had laced it with something. I blew out a cloud. 

 

“Turns out there is such a thing as smoke without fire,” said The Vape Lord in a voice as serene as his face. “So. Shamil. How’s your heart?” 

“My heart?” I said, disarmed. “Well… still ticking. Just. Got out of rehab a couple weeks ago.” 

“Takes a big man to recognise that he has a problem and do something about it.” 

“Pity it wasn’t me that recognised it.” I laughed bitterly. “Or did something about it. They made me.” 

“Ah, well. As long as you’re moving forward.” 

“This helps.” I snorted a cloud out of my nostrils like a dragon. 

“Alhamdulillah.”  

​

I shot him a sidelong glance. There seemed nothing suspicious about him. He had placid, hooded eyes, and took on the air not of a shady nicotine slinger but something like a monk. We stood next to his car, peering down Crawford Street as if it was a landing strip for spacecraft, saying nothing. 

 

When I got back to the flat, everything was quiet. I left a packet of Pizza Shapes in front of Sonja’s door, like flowers at a gravestone, then sat in my room and puffed, thinking deep into the past and the future. A blind pimple throbbed. 

 

I began to meet up with The Vape Lord every couple of weeks to top up my supplies. We would chat about addiction and amends, fried chicken and the price of petrol. He told me stories about escaping war. How he’d come to Australia as a refugee as a young boy. He told me how very scared he was on the turbulent sea. How when they ran out of water, his mother cut her arm to feed him blood. How when they finally arrived at the refugee detention centre, it had been so long since he’d slept that he almost got vertigo when he lay down on a proper bed.  

 

Eventually, I stopped buying vape liquid and went there just to talk. I realised that he was the only person I spoke to. My only friend. Sonja and I passed each other in the tiny flat, carefully, vaporously, like ghosts. One day, sitting in the warm, pine-scented, immaculate white interior of the Commodore, The Vape Lord asked me a very strange question: 

 

“Did you know that there are opals on Mars?” 

“For real?” 

“Truly. And if opals exist on Mars, then water does, and maybe mankind can settle there. Ever seen an opal?”  

“Yeh. Sonja inherited an opal ring that Grandpa dug up in Lightning Ridge. It was as big as a plum. The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” 

“The ones on Mars are more precious than anything on Earth.” The Vape Lord’s hooded eyes sparkled with an inner fire. “Would you like to see them?” 

“Sure,” I laughed.  

 

At that, he revved the Commodore’s engine. As it roared, the lights along Crawford Street became blindingly bright, illuminating the asphalt like a runway. He eased out into the street and pressed his foot down on the accelerator. The car went faster and faster, racing down Crawford Street, with a speed I’d never known possible, even in the drunkest of joyrides, scrrrting down the avenues of Queanbeyan and Canberra in a cloud of burnt rubber, with no regard for life or limb; we drove past the yellow MOTEL sign with the blinking O, past the Queanbeyan Swimming Pool, until finally, the Commodore lifted off the Earth and shot into the atmosphere. 

 

We flew through the galaxy. It was blistered with stars, streaked by scarred light and drifts of smoke from the open mouth of a profane god.  

 

An hour later, we arrived on Mars.  

 

We sat on the bonnet of the Commodore on the edge of a crater. It was rimmed with chunky bright opals, glowing holographic. Seams of opals stretched off into the distance, like gossamer laid across the dusty red planet. The Vape Lord beckoned, and I passed him my vape. He puffed and blew out a heavy cloud that bobbled thick in the air without dissipating. It was the first time I’d seen him actually smoke. Then he said:  

 

“Why do you think your sister Sonja watches pimple popping videos?” 

“Dunno. They give her a sense of satisfaction?” 

“Sure. But it’s more than that. She watches them because she thinks there’s something wrong with the universe that needs to be fixed. Like there’s a plug in the cosmic flow or an evil lodged in its skin that needs to be expunged. So on a small level, popping a pimple is a microcosm of evil being expunged, then healed. Even if only for a moment.” 

“Ha ha. That’s some theory.” 

“You don’t agree?” 

“Not really. I don’t think there’s something wrong with the universe. Even if there was, there’s nothing that little pissants like us could do about it. The universe is how it is – perfectly indifferent – and we are the ones that are wrong.”   

 

A shooting star crossed our vision, almost close enough to scorch our skin. 

 

“Shamil,” said The Vape Lord. “I reckon your sister watches those videos because that’s what she hopes for you. To unplug the wrong. Then to heal.” 

 

I stared out into the universe, and I thought about how I’d burned every bridge I’d ever built, how the one with Sonja was hanging by a thin thread, wearing through like one of those rope bridges across molten lava or a canyon in a movie. How I’d stolen her heirloom opal ring to pawn it for drugs. How Sonja had found me bleeding out in the bath. 

 

I wanted to cry, but instead, I laughed. “You’re saying I’m like a pimple?” 

 

He jumped down off the bonnet and crouched in the dust. As he spoke, I couldn’t see his face. 

 

“When I was in the detention centre,” said The Vape Lord. “I saw a man who cried every night. I was shocked, because on the boat, he had seemed almost super human – a leader, a navigator. The person who took no shit and got shit done. But I overheard him talking to my dad. It turned out, that while trying to do something good, he had done something bad. Very bad. And he couldn’t forgive himself.” 

“Do you know if he ever did?” 

“I saw him once after that. Only once. On the street in Canberra, walking the other way, holding a little girl’s hand. She must have been his daughter. He didn’t see me, but I watched them walk, hand in hand, and saw that she adored him beyond belief, and that he was an extraordinary father. And I realised that in order to have become that, he must have somehow forgiven himself. And that made me happier than I’d been in years.” 

“How do you think he forgave himself?” 

“Patience,” said The Vape Lord, standing up and turning to me. “Time and patience.” He was holding his palm out. In it was an enormous black opal, as big as a peach, chipped in places, in other places perfectly smoothed, as if by an ancient river, holding in its strange dark form celestial fires and flecks of purple, gold and crimson; a self-contained galaxy with the possibility of water that could sustain life. “Here. Have this.” 

 

I tested the opal’s weight in my palm, quietly placed it in my pocket and thanked him. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again. We stood and looked at the distant Earth. 

 

When I arrived home, Sonja wasn’t on her phone. She was sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the photo of all of us together. I sat next to her, and she barely seemed to notice until I took her hand, prised it open and placed the opal in her palm. She looked up, shocked, as if waking from the deepest sleep. 

 

“Where’d you get this?” 

“I found it.” 

“You didn’t steal it?” 

“I found it.” 

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” 

“Hey, Sonja. Can I watch something with you?” 

“Okay,” she said tentatively, opening her phone. 

​

On screen, frozen, a man was knee deep in a flooded street, in the rain, holding a rake and scraping at something beneath the water. His hair was plastered with rain. Sonja pressed play. The man’s arms started to move vigorously, and I saw that he was trying to dislodge thick clumps of leaves that had clogged the mouth of a drain. Once he dislodged the leaves, the water began to swirl, and its murky surface became alive with mesmerising whirlpools, like Milky Ways moving in fast forward as the water was sucked down,

down, down. 

​

The man began to laugh with delight, and soon, so did my sister and I.

​

​

​