Coriander Man: It Came From Outer Space

This story contains a stylistic representation of an Australian dialect which does not conform to Vocal's editorial standards. The author would like to thank the Vocal editing staff for making an exception in this unusual case.

tin shed bush doof i was just 18 when it happened gettings bonkers with a bunch of mates and a hell of a lota people i didnt even know crazy one that one

Its name was the coriander man. It was standing on fourteen legs on the knoll near a tent where people were detaching themselves from reality in myriad constructions. It was not seen for the darkness.

christie and her mate were off and doing shit way away from the shed like not in a tent but out in a clearing and that night was freezing better hope you have a spenny coat speshy if youre far from the fire freeze your bloody balls off

The centrepiece of this party taking place upon an unassuming patchwork of stolen inland Australian soil was a shed which was a rave which every year the people partying had dubbed the The Shed. Three girls came stumbling out of it. Because the coriander man was wearing headphones and listening to its own music it could not hear the EDM which was blasting in and from The Shed and which even for the standards of a bush doof was very very loud.

i was wearing headphones i was on the decks yeh you kidding mate oh i thought that you were playing around yes thats where you play the music i was queuing a track n trying to listen to sync a track with the next one i wasnt very good to be honest ha ha but uh yeh look i really wasnt exactly looking at the room i think i was queing avicii if it matters r i p

Walking away from the tent towards The Shed the coriander man passed the girls. They were on their phones sometimes clutching and reaching for each other across unstable turns of earth and staring at the awestriking immensity of the stars and because of all these things they hadn't even that it slivered right between them. The doof was well away from light pollution. The sky didn't moon. The sheer velocity of the arrival of the coriander man had pushed away the clouds. Looking up the tapestry of stars was framed by eucalyptus.

i was pinging sure but honestly up until that point it was probably the happiest and most intensely spiritually freeing moment of my existence my entire life and just so much fun that weekend mate so much love and like a rainbow a fairys dream listen brother i appreciate that you say that i lost a lot that night so i really do appreciate you taking this seriously but the most munted part its sick it sounds almost sick to say it but i have to by god im still thankful to this day for having experienced what i did

The coriander man walked into The Shed. There were over fifty people inside dancing their living brains off. The song was playing at 120 BPM but beats per minute wasn't a language the coriander man's form was able to interpret. And even if it could speak the language the headphones it was wearing were noise cancelling and it heard nothing of the outside world. It walked further for The Shed.

hard to see anything in there because its dark yeh but gotta member more than anything its strobey as

how i noticed it well the first thing i noticed was the greens the light the guy was was only green storta spinning but like an everyday lightshow pattern

The Shed entered into ending.

obviously in my peripheral i thought they were normal lights for ages

Anyone who looked at it was evaporated by its form. For at least a couple of minutes this was less than half a dozen people as the people had not been interested in distinguishing lights from one another. They were interested in dance. And so the sweaty joyous people carried on bumping into each other and holding one another's hands and tapping their feet swinging their hips and arms and rotating their shoulders in various beats and motions. The coriander man stood with a sturdy lumbering posture. It watched in almost curiosity. Its bones like ligaments threaded tendrils out of light.

you got any durries fuck its fine just giving me the jitters is all

In one particular circle of dancing friends a man had fallen over. Something of her friend had popped and he had fallen to the floor. Immediately she went to her friend bending over and opening her eyes. She tried to open his. The lights of the party operated through an algorithm and in this particular moment most of the colours had passed away and large smooth white strobes ascended as the quintessential light. The Shed became a photo album.

id call it a mirror you ever been to a funhouse with illusions mm yeh yeh yeh house of mirrors thats it

The coriander man by passive force subsumed the lives of anyone whose dance attained reconsciousness. Some people were tripping over its legs but not yet realising the shape of them and so they were still dancing. Some people were singing with their eyes closed and so they were still dancing. One girl was looking at her phone. The coriander man had been moving slowly now to the centre of The Shed then stopped turned to look towards the DJ. It watched the DJ.

i dont mean to get angry but im trying to tell you that the green wasnt off of somethin like youre saying the green is what it was

Men and women children really collapsed by the weight of the coriander man. They were clustering together. It had a gravitas. Then screaming happened. Some had ran, few were running. Many hadn't. The Shed was empty of the inattentives now with the exception of the DJ. The strobes had stopped. The DJ raised his head. Not a glimpse of corrugated tin was visible. Green light hovered in the air. It was a titan on the horizon. In a dark an aparition seemed to form like a tornado of maelstrom roots whirled and refracted floatsam hologram and it was then that the DJ saw instead a picture of a sinking colossus a container ship some hundred thousand tonnes with lights signalling SOS from above and below the surface simultaneously adrift a midnight sea. To describe his apprehension of the corriander man most specifically it was as though that very image had been laser printed to a morph suit which then was worn by a man not entirely proportioned. Comprehension became erroneous.

the lights dropped like all of them i thought it was a power drop at first not unreasonable yeh n you gotta remember its a laptop so it wouldntve cut out if it was but it wasnt just the laptop the decks were still kicking and the speakers too

i could feel the vibrations in my chest avicii pummelling my body and well thats it thats when it happened the guy just standing there looking right at me in the face

Some lights on a launch pad flickered.

to answer that plainly no the guy did not have eyes i wouldnt call it eyes and yes at this point a bit of me still thought it mightve been a bloke

A man said You alright mate. The coriander man did not reply. It did not move. He did not move. Music was blasting his ears. Music made the corainder. It slithered closer.

next impulse was to run but somethin had stopped me on my feet i saw on the guys head there were headphones exactly like mine like such a similar design and that just struck with me it stayed with me and it stayed with me then i was paralysed

The greenness of the coriander man had simmered down as though it were embarrassed but right then that had stopped. The time of the thing was itself part of the greenness which went unrelentingly to glow. It radiated.

why would it have headphones man just cant get that one outta my head

Green was shooting out and around and tapping off of tin. Reverberating. Smears of light made prism colonies. The coriander man was opening its arms to the DJ. A light central to the scene of things became symetric as it chose to fold away from sound. The DJ couldn't understand.

as it approached it was yelling yelling at me

A hand was reaching out which was rather like the sun. The fourteen legs slurped across the bodies. The sounds of the bush nullified it was crawling like a forest.

but not like rudely if that make sense do i sound like im crazy or what ha ha yeh i know that thank you brother why would you interview me otherwise but i suppose to answer that part of the question id say it was like it was yelling over music well its its own perfect analogy init its exactly what it was doing it was yelling over music

Thoughts of Christie.

i know you dont know clubs but even you know you yell down there on the floor to be heard youre yelling over bodies

The land was petrified.

no again i would not call it angry

Christie intensified in the DJ's mind she was his twin sister who was with already her husband to be somewhere at this party. The DJ could not have known but would eventualy learn that they'd been kissing on a rock when they were embraced by the legs of the coriander man. Their kiss has been immortalised. It turned them into rock.

you can ask me as many times as you like but thats the answer cob ill say the exact phrase again it was a mummas warmest hug

The arms of the coriander man were open. They were poised at either side of it yet also reaching out reaching for him. The DJ did not hesitate. The DJ took the hand.

a hug my man a hug it took me by the chest