I should have seen the signs that kept hitting me in the face. Five years ago I was living on a Tibetan Buddhist property , working, praying, meditating . An idyllic hideaway in my state’s north country. The place teemed with roos, wallabies, wombats, royal size huntsman, rats, and snakes plus the giant lizard that climbed trees. Everything moved in harmony until my last year when a couple arrived on our doorstep . For the first three days I hardly saw them. They kept out of sight doing their own thing I thought. Then one day they appeared for our noon day meal. The woman was friendly and normal enough but she seemed nervous and edgy. Her friend was hyper , he started on about conspiracy theories, aliens are walking among us he thundered. Then he went on about Trump. Until recent times I had not heard of him. I was blissfully ignorant not watching that reality tv show. He told us in a very animated serious way , he’s going to win the election, he’s going to kick Hillary Clinton’s arse. We just nodded slurping our noodles while he ranted on wild conspiracy theories like a mad scientist. Later that year a guy came up to stay who looked like one of the members of the Bandido Bikie gang. There was a strange look in his eye that made me uncomfortable. In the kitchen we sat around having breakfast when I mentioned to him rather innocently I thought of when he was going to Bairnsdale, a major town two hours away. Suddenly he got aggressive screaming at me not to put words into his mouth. Later that day my two friends were going away for a couple of days and I was left in charge. It was me, the cook, and the crazy Bandido bandit. He was obsessed with Tibetan Buddhism in a very unhealthy way. One day I mused out loud that I would like to go Lakes Entrance about and hour down the road. I wanted to get some sea air in my lungs. He offered to drive me down which I thought was very nice of him. I told him let’s do it after breakfast tomorrow. The next morning I saw him sitting at a table his nose deep in some Buddhist text. I said hello and he didn’t answer his nose almost touching the page. Then at one point he looked up with a mad eye telling me he’d been waiting for since 4am! I said, breakfast is usually around 8am. I tried reasoning with the man but he was in no mood for reason. He began a rant following me into the kitchen putting his hands on me as I tried to diffuse the situation. In the end I moved away from the problem and went to my cabin and didn’t come out until my two friends came back the next day. I worked in the area dealing with mental illness but coming to a Buddhist centre I never thought I’d see it there. How wrong I was. The Bandido man was told to leave and again life became iddylic until another strange man came into my orbit. It was around 5am I was up having coffee. Usually I got up early preparing the Gompa ( temple) for morning prayer to Tara. I was standing there quietly having my coffee suddenly I saw him at the kitchen entrance. He ranted, ‘ it’s an emergency, a redback spider has bitten me on my penis’. I was not prepared for this pre dawn, pre Trump, pre madness start to a day. To put this in context our property was an hour or more from this guy’s hometown. And it was predawn . What the hell are you here for at this time of the night/day. It got worse, he ranted that his vital signs were shutting down. He wanted me to ring the local doctor in Buchan but as I tried to reason with him they were shut. In the end I rang for an ambulance from Bairnsdale , two hours away. Two hours for his dick to drop off . He ranted on that I wasn’t compassionate enough. A pathetic excuse for a Bodhisattva. He demanded to see a Bodhisattva right now! A Bodhisattva by the way is an enlightened being something I knew I wasn’t . So my friend and comrade who ran the retreat centre was quite possibly just waking from his sleep. He demanded to see him. I said go ahead it’s your funeral I said because I don’t think knocking on his door at 5 am is going to improve his Bodhisattva disposition. In the end and there’s always an end as Ben Kingsley said in sexy beast , the ambulance came. They took the poor man away. I felt very sorry for that spider, I prayed for that spider might be still alive just so he could bite that man’s penis one more time. I heard that he got discharged from hospital without incident. The bus driver told me he was telling everyone he’d been bitten on his penis by a spider. That must have been an interesting ride. As I said at the start I should have seen the signs .