I didn’t think I would ever have to endure the pleasure of visiting the animals in 5C ever again having now risen to Course Co-ordinator in Martyrs College in outer Brisbane but the day came when the Dragon-lady collared me in my off period diligently marking my Year 12 Literature essays. She answered to the name of Ms Iona Whipp, most aptly named as we all found out sooner or later when we were sentenced to serve our time in Martyrs College.
“ Carravaggio, your’e in C5 next period,” she growled. She was rarely ever known to use the preface Mr Mrs or Ms. I tried to protest but I was uncertain how much clout my status carried having been only recently promoted. She sniggered and passed on. Must have found it passably funny, I suppose. I should have gambled with a more vigorous “ Get stuffed!” but that would have been suicidal. I felt I wasn’t yet that desperate. Disappointed, yes. Pissed off? Definitely. Being the nice diminutive Italian from Calabria I quietly collected my papers and picked out a simple passage for dictation from “Dick and Dora” that the First Grade teacher had left lying around as I made my way to the animals., feeling hopelessly doubtful, no, more than that…depressed wondering if any of the idiots there could cope with “Dick and Dora”. But I’d give it my best shot.
The day was hot and the animals restless, to say the least. The classroom had the fetid stink of a lair. Not a single one of them was seated. They prowled the room visiting each other with profanities which I will not repeat here but I pretended to ignore as far as I could.
“What are going to do today, sir?” asked one, without the least sincerity. It was a case of him throwing down the gauntlet, as it turned out.
I swallowed hard and croaked out “ Dictation. So be seated and take out your English files,” I said as gruffly as I could, but I believe my voice cracked in the last syllables.
“What’s that, sir? “ growled the fat one.
“Haven’t got a file. Cant work,” said one whose hair was all gelled up and pointing in every direction. He gave me the impression he had narrowly survived electrocution.
A few darts flew around for a while. I picked on the smartest of them who had an awful squint and looked like the effort of a drunken cartoonist and got him in a head lock from which I was quick to release him because he defended himself as unobtrusively as a skunk.
“Quick, you near the windows, open windows as far as they’ll go!”
To bring my laments to a quick end let me say that I won the day…rather the 40 minute period which seemed to have lasted 23 hours… and I got them to write all of three lines of “Dick and Dora”. To have gone any further would have sent them into throes of some mental paralysis. Besides the bell rang and I was glad to get out. I should say …beat a hasty retreat with as much dignity as I could muster.
Entering the room came tall, lean as a bean pole Jack Webb from the Social Studies Department with a sheaf of papers he said that he hoped he’d correct while he set them silent reading. I choked sharply to cut out a wild guffaw but I guess I didn’t want to discourage him.
“How was he?” he asked a trifle nervously, I thought.
“Piece of cake, Jack. They’re sweet as roses, ”I lied.
“Yeah?” He sounded a bit incredulous, I thought. “That’s good. I’ll finish off some corrections while they do the work I have for them.” Clearly he had never been down to the animals before. He would receive his baptism of reality today. He gave me a wink as if to say I’ll sort these out, don’t worry. Ha! Ha! I wasn’t the one who’d have anything to worry about. Poor bugger.
I recovered slowly in the English Department staff office during the last period of the day. A few minutes before Guantanamo shut down for the day I made my way down to the car park. I had to pass the lair on my way down. Just then the siren went and the purgatorial door where the souls of the damned in was located, slammed open as the monsters came pouring out, pushing each other about whilst wishing me a good afternoon for some strange reason. There had been nothing good about the afternoon for me. The last one out was Jack. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked knackered for want of a better way of putting it. He leaned drunkenly against the door and glared at me.
“You’ll keep, you rotten bastard,” he said affably. “You could have warned me, damn it!”
“ Get them to do any work?” I asked disingenuously.
He stood deep in thought of what reply would be apt for the experience but sadly shook his head.
“What work? They farted all afternoon, the pigs! I cant wait to get home and take a hot half hour shower. God!”
I would like to think a loving God heard him.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Balladonia - Robert Halsey
Vikko had been happy working as a bouncer at the Oasis nightclub somewhere in Perth.I don’t know where exactly. I don’t know Vikko for that matter, but Jose did. I can’t recall just how he talked me into getting Vikko out of Perth as quick as because there had been an altercation with someone who turned out to be a member of the Devil’s Angels, and you don’t mess with them and still expect to live. So here we were in my beat-up 60’s-something VW groaning and coughing our way out of Western Australia but keeping a watch for black-jacketed motorcyclists bearing down on us.
Cyclone Vance had sputtered out a few days ago. Passing through Widgiemooltha we drove through the last lashings of its waning fury. The sky was still grey and the roads still waterlogged in places.
“…the police released the name of the man towing six wheelie bins behind his gopher on the Kwinna Highway. He had been singing lewd songs and…”
I turned off the radio.Vikko and Jose remonstrated. They laughed like hell at the thought of the idiot who must surely have been drunk. Why did regional radio carry crazy stories like that? I wondered.
The scrub land looked a sorry sight, more greyish than green. It had just missed the rains that had flooded the country further north. From the top of the slag pile which had become a lookout point we had seen the inland sea that Vance had formed. The usual salt pans had all become one large inland sea. The grey slagheap had rivulets running down its steep slopes. It had formed incrementally over the years from the gold mine for which Norseman had become famous. The sky was a darker grey and very threatening. A strong wind ruffled the bushes and skinny trees along the way. An afforestation attempt was being made to return trees where the miners had cut them down to feed their boilers for the production of gold. The saplings rose like an army of spears , young and slender.
A combi van had pulled up off the highway and an old couple were enjoying a cup of tea or coffee. They waved slowly. Jose called back something, I’m not sure what, but it was lost on the wind. He is an inveterate caller out of inanities. I have this problem with him.
And then there was Balladonia. It looked sad and stranded like a forgotten attempt to arrest the emptiness of the outback but all it did was to emphasize the immensity of the undertaking. It looked a derelict gesture…just a weather-beaten and sun-baked café and its service station, with the rusty boiler a proud but sad symbol of a something civilization had thrown out in despair. The shingle, “Balladonia Roadhouse”, was sand-blasted and fading in a patchy sort of way. Who’d care in this God-forsaken hole? There it stood remorselessly devoured by salt and sun. Three twenty-wheeled juggernauts were drawn up whilst the crew enjoyed the meagre hospitality of denimed and bearded and rather scruffy angels of the lonely travellers. We ambled up to the bar and ordered a round of the amber “oh-be-joyfuls”, aka Carlton Mid-strengths. It went down beautifully. It’s the stuff that slakes thirsts and envigorates life. The exhausted drivers were not inclined for conversation as Vikko and Jose soon found out. After a couple of rounds we hit the dusty, red world again. There was a way to go yet. Vikko had someone meeting him at Cocklebiddy. There our good turn would end. Hopefully. Jose was financing the getaway, but some of the expenses would have been met by the enigmatic Vikko. So ?What the hell!
Cyclone Vance had sputtered out a few days ago. Passing through Widgiemooltha we drove through the last lashings of its waning fury. The sky was still grey and the roads still waterlogged in places.
“…the police released the name of the man towing six wheelie bins behind his gopher on the Kwinna Highway. He had been singing lewd songs and…”
I turned off the radio.Vikko and Jose remonstrated. They laughed like hell at the thought of the idiot who must surely have been drunk. Why did regional radio carry crazy stories like that? I wondered.
The scrub land looked a sorry sight, more greyish than green. It had just missed the rains that had flooded the country further north. From the top of the slag pile which had become a lookout point we had seen the inland sea that Vance had formed. The usual salt pans had all become one large inland sea. The grey slagheap had rivulets running down its steep slopes. It had formed incrementally over the years from the gold mine for which Norseman had become famous. The sky was a darker grey and very threatening. A strong wind ruffled the bushes and skinny trees along the way. An afforestation attempt was being made to return trees where the miners had cut them down to feed their boilers for the production of gold. The saplings rose like an army of spears , young and slender.
A combi van had pulled up off the highway and an old couple were enjoying a cup of tea or coffee. They waved slowly. Jose called back something, I’m not sure what, but it was lost on the wind. He is an inveterate caller out of inanities. I have this problem with him.
And then there was Balladonia. It looked sad and stranded like a forgotten attempt to arrest the emptiness of the outback but all it did was to emphasize the immensity of the undertaking. It looked a derelict gesture…just a weather-beaten and sun-baked café and its service station, with the rusty boiler a proud but sad symbol of a something civilization had thrown out in despair. The shingle, “Balladonia Roadhouse”, was sand-blasted and fading in a patchy sort of way. Who’d care in this God-forsaken hole? There it stood remorselessly devoured by salt and sun. Three twenty-wheeled juggernauts were drawn up whilst the crew enjoyed the meagre hospitality of denimed and bearded and rather scruffy angels of the lonely travellers. We ambled up to the bar and ordered a round of the amber “oh-be-joyfuls”, aka Carlton Mid-strengths. It went down beautifully. It’s the stuff that slakes thirsts and envigorates life. The exhausted drivers were not inclined for conversation as Vikko and Jose soon found out. After a couple of rounds we hit the dusty, red world again. There was a way to go yet. Vikko had someone meeting him at Cocklebiddy. There our good turn would end. Hopefully. Jose was financing the getaway, but some of the expenses would have been met by the enigmatic Vikko. So ?What the hell!
Cocklebiddy - Robert Halsey
It was hot. Dancing waves shimmered in the distance and the haze was filled with broken images of the timeless land, brown and red and dotted with thousands of grey-green wilting bush that was all the vegetation the country was able to support. The Eyre Highway rose and fell like a black ribbon over undulating surface till it straightened itself out and lay like a tired snake, of mythic proportions, stretched out exhausted as it ran fading into the distance.
Scotty was driving over to Adelaide in his early vintage model Holden to try and bring Bevvy back to Coolbellup. There had been a falling out during a drunken session in their rental ramshackle unit. When Scotty came to his senses some months later he decided that he had some serious issues to sort out. Debbie had to get back into his life. He knew where she’d be holed out in Adelaide. He hoped she would still be there although she hadn’t bothered to answer his calls.
You could neve be sure what you’d come across once you were out on the Nullabor. He’d driven trucks over a couple of times when he drove for New Farmers Association and he’d seen some remarkable sights but nothing prepared him for what came his way some ten km before he’d hit Cocklebiddy. A red uncovered dirt track had been running parallel to the Eyre Highway after it had cropped up from nowhere as far as he could remember. Now and again these ghost trails have a way of cropping up and you wondered who had made it and when and why. Usually you’d see dust devils or sort of tumbleweed or desert briar come bowling along till the wind died that drove it. Nothing else ever used them these days as far as he knew. Until this day. And then he saw something that made him wonder whether he should laugh out loud or make the sign of the cross solemnly. Or perhaps both.
A black and ancient model hearse drove along the red dirt track churning up a cloud of red dust in its wake. It was driven by a gelled down blond driver, a callow youth of sorts who peered out of the windshield from behind thick-lensed spectacles. It followed in the wake of an undertaker who looked very properly dressed in black from head to toe, black top hat and all. He mopped his face in a large red handkerchief from time to time. Scotty knew he’d be drenched in perspiration under his undertaker’s dress. He thought the man had to be seriously mad. And that went for the idiot behind the wheel. In the hearse was the coffin, covered with gum tree branches and what once had been purple desert rosemary and lavender flowers.
Scotty pulled over to the side a few metres ahead and waited for them to draw abreast and then he got out of his car and rested against it. He pulled out a half-smoked cigarette and lit it.
“What youse got there, matey?” he called out.
The undertaker ignored the question. He had heard, all right, unless he was deaf as well as daft. Looking straight ahead as before, he proceeded with the greatest dignity. Only the callow youth behind the wheel of the hearse looked sideways and tore his eyes back to the front, gritting his teeth.
“Where yerrz gonna dump the poor sod?” asked Scotty.
His earnest question was also treated with disdain.
“ See yerz, you dumb bastard! Make sure you bury him deep or the dingoes will get him,” farewelled Scotty, with this piece of unsolicited advice.
He got back into the car and drove alongside the hearse a while longer till his thirst reminded him that Cocklebiddy was not all that far off so he gunned the engine and tore off down the Highway with a wild whooping.
If you haven’t been to Cocklebiddy it’s just a place on the map. It is concealed from the rest of the civilized world that is unaware of its obscurity and that goes for many Australians, as well. Cocklebiddy probably cherishes its concealment from the rest of the world. All around it are treeless expanses of shrubs, truly nullus aborum, which means “No trees.” Shades of brown, red, ochre and a tinge of greyish-green where shrubs and bushes eke out a precarious existence.
Into this hell of a desert some poor, dear departed was going to be deposited, just where Scotty was never able to discover. He went back and forth to meet up with the funeral party but it had just disappeared from the face pf the earth. The scrawny, sweaty tawny-haired bloke with a sad squint who ran the pub in Cocklebiddy grinned knowingly. He wasn’t going to fall for that trick. He’d heard stories like that before. Like Spacelab falling out of the sky somewhere in the outback. He gave Scotty a beer on the house for sheer audacity and inventiveness. Scotty was glad enough to down the amber life-giver and went outside one more time slowly, his eyes peering closely into every likely spot. He finally gave it up, starting to worry about his beginning to see things. Anyway, it was time to move on. The succession of ridges ahead of him waited patiently. Twenty wheeler trucks bearing the legends of various multinational and national companies ran up and down the highway. Scotty wondered if anyone of those drivers might have come across the cortege and what the drivers would have done.
Scotty was driving over to Adelaide in his early vintage model Holden to try and bring Bevvy back to Coolbellup. There had been a falling out during a drunken session in their rental ramshackle unit. When Scotty came to his senses some months later he decided that he had some serious issues to sort out. Debbie had to get back into his life. He knew where she’d be holed out in Adelaide. He hoped she would still be there although she hadn’t bothered to answer his calls.
You could neve be sure what you’d come across once you were out on the Nullabor. He’d driven trucks over a couple of times when he drove for New Farmers Association and he’d seen some remarkable sights but nothing prepared him for what came his way some ten km before he’d hit Cocklebiddy. A red uncovered dirt track had been running parallel to the Eyre Highway after it had cropped up from nowhere as far as he could remember. Now and again these ghost trails have a way of cropping up and you wondered who had made it and when and why. Usually you’d see dust devils or sort of tumbleweed or desert briar come bowling along till the wind died that drove it. Nothing else ever used them these days as far as he knew. Until this day. And then he saw something that made him wonder whether he should laugh out loud or make the sign of the cross solemnly. Or perhaps both.
A black and ancient model hearse drove along the red dirt track churning up a cloud of red dust in its wake. It was driven by a gelled down blond driver, a callow youth of sorts who peered out of the windshield from behind thick-lensed spectacles. It followed in the wake of an undertaker who looked very properly dressed in black from head to toe, black top hat and all. He mopped his face in a large red handkerchief from time to time. Scotty knew he’d be drenched in perspiration under his undertaker’s dress. He thought the man had to be seriously mad. And that went for the idiot behind the wheel. In the hearse was the coffin, covered with gum tree branches and what once had been purple desert rosemary and lavender flowers.
Scotty pulled over to the side a few metres ahead and waited for them to draw abreast and then he got out of his car and rested against it. He pulled out a half-smoked cigarette and lit it.
“What youse got there, matey?” he called out.
The undertaker ignored the question. He had heard, all right, unless he was deaf as well as daft. Looking straight ahead as before, he proceeded with the greatest dignity. Only the callow youth behind the wheel of the hearse looked sideways and tore his eyes back to the front, gritting his teeth.
“Where yerrz gonna dump the poor sod?” asked Scotty.
His earnest question was also treated with disdain.
“ See yerz, you dumb bastard! Make sure you bury him deep or the dingoes will get him,” farewelled Scotty, with this piece of unsolicited advice.
He got back into the car and drove alongside the hearse a while longer till his thirst reminded him that Cocklebiddy was not all that far off so he gunned the engine and tore off down the Highway with a wild whooping.
If you haven’t been to Cocklebiddy it’s just a place on the map. It is concealed from the rest of the civilized world that is unaware of its obscurity and that goes for many Australians, as well. Cocklebiddy probably cherishes its concealment from the rest of the world. All around it are treeless expanses of shrubs, truly nullus aborum, which means “No trees.” Shades of brown, red, ochre and a tinge of greyish-green where shrubs and bushes eke out a precarious existence.
Into this hell of a desert some poor, dear departed was going to be deposited, just where Scotty was never able to discover. He went back and forth to meet up with the funeral party but it had just disappeared from the face pf the earth. The scrawny, sweaty tawny-haired bloke with a sad squint who ran the pub in Cocklebiddy grinned knowingly. He wasn’t going to fall for that trick. He’d heard stories like that before. Like Spacelab falling out of the sky somewhere in the outback. He gave Scotty a beer on the house for sheer audacity and inventiveness. Scotty was glad enough to down the amber life-giver and went outside one more time slowly, his eyes peering closely into every likely spot. He finally gave it up, starting to worry about his beginning to see things. Anyway, it was time to move on. The succession of ridges ahead of him waited patiently. Twenty wheeler trucks bearing the legends of various multinational and national companies ran up and down the highway. Scotty wondered if anyone of those drivers might have come across the cortege and what the drivers would have done.
Mundrabilla - Robert Halsey
A goanna lumbered across the Eyre Highway and disappeared into the surrounding scrub. In a land where time is intended to stand still, it knows all the secrets of survival…as long as it doesn’t lumber across the intruding black asphalt ribbon where demons from another world race madly to meet deadlines. They have all but wiped out the indigenous fauna in the desert land where now no vultures fly.
This is no place for human habitation, let alone any civilized existence. That is why there are only fifteen remaining residents here today whose destiny lies in the success of the commercial venture that is the roadhouse which serves petrol, diesel, food and drink to the itinerants who race about to fill the shopping centres with food and other products associated with civilized existence. The roadhouse community will never get rich and they know it. They have no illusions about their fate. That is not why they choose to live here. Their roots, they claim, go all the way back to the sheep people, the Afghan cameleers and the nomadic aborigines who now seldom make an appearance.
Life is made exciting by the small wildlife park they serve. Here live a trio of scruffy emus, four iconic camels who spend their time dreaming of their past glory, or so it seems from the way they sleep off time that has changed things so enormously that there is no room for them beyond the wire fence; this they cannot understand. The kangaroos hop about lethargically when it’s feed time or when there is some disputed issues to settle. The aviary brings the community the only sweet sounds from off the desert. Mundrabilla is not altogether without some tenuous claim to fame. Fragments of a meteorite that fell many years ago, more than any living soul can recall, and lie scattered over an area 60 km wide. It is said to be one of the largest remains of meteorites in the world.
I fly a tiny Cessna into Mundrabilla whenever I feel like a break from Adelaide corporate life. It takes a couple of stops along the way to get here. Craig, who owns the Mundrabilla Roadhouse, his son and two locals some time ago had cleared away a landing strip and erected a wind-socket of sorts to help me. It was all I needed to get in and out. I am the talk of the social circle of our law firm, Anderson, McGregor and Luciani and my colleagues make no secret of their chatter about their elderly eccentric senior partner. They have often asked me what takes me out there. They are amiably confused. I have laughed them off. They would never really understand. I have been coming here for some four years now. I discovered these outback desert places, Balladonia, Cocklebiddy and Mundrabilla to name a few of them, when I first drove over with my family about ten years ago. I then promised myself I would return one day, and I have been doing so ever since. My wife no longer accompanies me on these trips, ill-health preventing her from doing so, but she never stops asking me about my visits. The desert, I know, has also claimed her as it has done me all these years.
The desert exerts a rugged and powerful spell over me. There is a primordial energy that flows all around me, enveloping me in its mystery.
I admit I cannot claim it is a common human experience. I rather doubt it but somehow I tend to believe that maybe it does even if one doesn’t care to admit to it for one reason or another. The experience could be below the level of consciousness, but it must be there all the same. That could be one reason that most human beings fear it and would rather move away as soon as possible to feel safe.
In Australia, civilization dares to encroach upon it from time to time… roadhouses… petrol, tyres, batteries, Coco Cola, beer cheap accommodation in lumpy beds…twenty-wheelers…tourist coaches…detritus strung out along the black ribbon of a highway … empty beer cans and bottles…. “LIZ WUZ HERE”…work of some graffiti vandal, obviously…
From on top of the Hampton Tableland a desert wind bears down in winter and chills the marrow and in summer it burns the skin and cracks it open. Looking out from a vantage point one is acutely aware of the insignificance of man. It makes me wonder about the exaggerated sense of our importance in the scheme of things in the universe. It is a quietening experience that humbles and restores ones sense of proportion, gives one a clearer picture of our place in the cosmic scale of life.
Everywhere we look, as far as one can see and far beyond it, there was once an inland sea where waters roared and teemed with life. When it all drained away it was forever, and left behind it a dry and thirsty land that gasped for life. This is a red world pre-historically alive that has now to tolerate the intrusions of this tawdry civilized world from the coastal fringes of Australia that are now teeming with what Stephen Hawkins once called “chemical scum floating on the surface of the world.” His views are scarcely complimentary. I am aware of another view, a view of the waters draining away leaving the imagination of struggling life forms dreaming its dreams of life coming into being and passing away in the enfolding eco-drama of the millenniums. There is an urgency about the aesthetics of this endlessness that summons the tribute of the senses.
This is no place for human habitation, let alone any civilized existence. That is why there are only fifteen remaining residents here today whose destiny lies in the success of the commercial venture that is the roadhouse which serves petrol, diesel, food and drink to the itinerants who race about to fill the shopping centres with food and other products associated with civilized existence. The roadhouse community will never get rich and they know it. They have no illusions about their fate. That is not why they choose to live here. Their roots, they claim, go all the way back to the sheep people, the Afghan cameleers and the nomadic aborigines who now seldom make an appearance.
Life is made exciting by the small wildlife park they serve. Here live a trio of scruffy emus, four iconic camels who spend their time dreaming of their past glory, or so it seems from the way they sleep off time that has changed things so enormously that there is no room for them beyond the wire fence; this they cannot understand. The kangaroos hop about lethargically when it’s feed time or when there is some disputed issues to settle. The aviary brings the community the only sweet sounds from off the desert. Mundrabilla is not altogether without some tenuous claim to fame. Fragments of a meteorite that fell many years ago, more than any living soul can recall, and lie scattered over an area 60 km wide. It is said to be one of the largest remains of meteorites in the world.
I fly a tiny Cessna into Mundrabilla whenever I feel like a break from Adelaide corporate life. It takes a couple of stops along the way to get here. Craig, who owns the Mundrabilla Roadhouse, his son and two locals some time ago had cleared away a landing strip and erected a wind-socket of sorts to help me. It was all I needed to get in and out. I am the talk of the social circle of our law firm, Anderson, McGregor and Luciani and my colleagues make no secret of their chatter about their elderly eccentric senior partner. They have often asked me what takes me out there. They are amiably confused. I have laughed them off. They would never really understand. I have been coming here for some four years now. I discovered these outback desert places, Balladonia, Cocklebiddy and Mundrabilla to name a few of them, when I first drove over with my family about ten years ago. I then promised myself I would return one day, and I have been doing so ever since. My wife no longer accompanies me on these trips, ill-health preventing her from doing so, but she never stops asking me about my visits. The desert, I know, has also claimed her as it has done me all these years.
The desert exerts a rugged and powerful spell over me. There is a primordial energy that flows all around me, enveloping me in its mystery.
I admit I cannot claim it is a common human experience. I rather doubt it but somehow I tend to believe that maybe it does even if one doesn’t care to admit to it for one reason or another. The experience could be below the level of consciousness, but it must be there all the same. That could be one reason that most human beings fear it and would rather move away as soon as possible to feel safe.
In Australia, civilization dares to encroach upon it from time to time… roadhouses… petrol, tyres, batteries, Coco Cola, beer cheap accommodation in lumpy beds…twenty-wheelers…tourist coaches…detritus strung out along the black ribbon of a highway … empty beer cans and bottles…. “LIZ WUZ HERE”…work of some graffiti vandal, obviously…
From on top of the Hampton Tableland a desert wind bears down in winter and chills the marrow and in summer it burns the skin and cracks it open. Looking out from a vantage point one is acutely aware of the insignificance of man. It makes me wonder about the exaggerated sense of our importance in the scheme of things in the universe. It is a quietening experience that humbles and restores ones sense of proportion, gives one a clearer picture of our place in the cosmic scale of life.
Everywhere we look, as far as one can see and far beyond it, there was once an inland sea where waters roared and teemed with life. When it all drained away it was forever, and left behind it a dry and thirsty land that gasped for life. This is a red world pre-historically alive that has now to tolerate the intrusions of this tawdry civilized world from the coastal fringes of Australia that are now teeming with what Stephen Hawkins once called “chemical scum floating on the surface of the world.” His views are scarcely complimentary. I am aware of another view, a view of the waters draining away leaving the imagination of struggling life forms dreaming its dreams of life coming into being and passing away in the enfolding eco-drama of the millenniums. There is an urgency about the aesthetics of this endlessness that summons the tribute of the senses.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
How To Walk With The Dead - Robert Halsey
It was three years since Sgt Carlos Martinez had gone to Afghanistan with the rest of his SAS unit. He wrote regularly but his letters never divulged the nature of his mission nor what he was going through in that distant hell. Rabbit tried to read between the lines to get as close to Carlos as possible. He dwelt upon each word that contained so much of one who was so near to his heart at all times.Time had not lessened his closeness. The words were from the depth of Carlos’ being, from his brain, from his mind and heart and if they also contained the scent of the Afghan desert air, the scent of concealed Talib fighters all around him, it also contained the warmth of his friend’s concern for him here in far away Australia.
He went into the cafes they loved to drop in to and have a coffee or something to eat. It seemed as if Carlos was always about to return from buying a paper, or from the loo. His shadow would fall over the table when a waiter approached for the order. Rabbit sometimes looked around half expecting to see his smiling bearded face. And the waiter would look around too, but somewhat bemused.
Rabbit would go down to the beach and spread his towel where they usually sat and listened to the breakers surging in. They’d sit and listen, and they seldom had anything to say to each other. The closeness was all. Salt air would whip across their faces as the sea breeze blew the sand about.
After dinner Rabbit walked the streets where they’d walked after they’d had a few at one of their favourite pubs. He would seek out those friends who knew them and Carlos would be there in the friend’s eyes or he would hear his voice in the voices of friends and their jokes and laughter. The friends never felt they were being used as transport by someone they were never to meet again in this life, someone they were never going to have a drink with again.
Those who would keep faith with the dead, go down to God’s little acre and hear the many howls of grief and anger rising from the marble monuments. But Carlos could never be returned to the earth that once bore him. Rabbit had learnt some time later from other Diggers who had returned from Afghanistan that there had been nothing left of Sgt Carlos Martinez after the roadside bomb blew the jeep to pieces with him in it. As he thought of him he could smell his blood. Carlos’s shadow swirled before him in a saraband for his lonely lover and slowly settled down on his bony shoulders like a cape.
It came to Rabbit one day that he needed to return to Salmon Head Beach near Cossack. That was where they would go whenever Carlos got leave. There was a shack that they had built bit by bit over the years. Rabbit opened the creaking door and got in to escape the strong sea breeze that had bowled him along the three kilometre trudge from where he had left the four wheel drive. He lit the stove with some driftwood and brewed a cup of tea. From a canvas sling bag he took out a message stick and a sheet of paper. He sat for some time wondering what to say to one who meant life and death to him, whose reality he was so wrapped up in all the time they had known each other. With his thin sharp blade he cut out the secret symbols of the message he intended sending all these years but hadn’t done so. But he felt that now was the time he should.
He went down to the beach one more time and gathered driftwood that had come to him from unknown distant shores, perhaps from Indonesia or even from another continent, or from another world. It had been caressed by waves and wind, home to thousands of tiny sea creatures all of whom by know must have died and gone down to the ocean floor to form a deposit for seaweed to germinate and be home to marine microbial life in the dark watery world where currents raced over sand and seaweed.
He arranged the firewood in a pattern he had never used before ..He brought fire to the mystical structure, and when he had got a strong blaze of wildly dancing flames going he introduced his message stick into its hissing and roaring dance of a short lived life till the winds whipped it out with a savage and final hiss as spray and sand ended it all.
Later that evening, when the stars began to appear like messengers from afar, Rabbit took the ashes of what remained of the message stick and smeared his head and body with it and then he waded into the water to deliver the sacred message to one who called to him.
He went into the cafes they loved to drop in to and have a coffee or something to eat. It seemed as if Carlos was always about to return from buying a paper, or from the loo. His shadow would fall over the table when a waiter approached for the order. Rabbit sometimes looked around half expecting to see his smiling bearded face. And the waiter would look around too, but somewhat bemused.
Rabbit would go down to the beach and spread his towel where they usually sat and listened to the breakers surging in. They’d sit and listen, and they seldom had anything to say to each other. The closeness was all. Salt air would whip across their faces as the sea breeze blew the sand about.
After dinner Rabbit walked the streets where they’d walked after they’d had a few at one of their favourite pubs. He would seek out those friends who knew them and Carlos would be there in the friend’s eyes or he would hear his voice in the voices of friends and their jokes and laughter. The friends never felt they were being used as transport by someone they were never to meet again in this life, someone they were never going to have a drink with again.
Those who would keep faith with the dead, go down to God’s little acre and hear the many howls of grief and anger rising from the marble monuments. But Carlos could never be returned to the earth that once bore him. Rabbit had learnt some time later from other Diggers who had returned from Afghanistan that there had been nothing left of Sgt Carlos Martinez after the roadside bomb blew the jeep to pieces with him in it. As he thought of him he could smell his blood. Carlos’s shadow swirled before him in a saraband for his lonely lover and slowly settled down on his bony shoulders like a cape.
It came to Rabbit one day that he needed to return to Salmon Head Beach near Cossack. That was where they would go whenever Carlos got leave. There was a shack that they had built bit by bit over the years. Rabbit opened the creaking door and got in to escape the strong sea breeze that had bowled him along the three kilometre trudge from where he had left the four wheel drive. He lit the stove with some driftwood and brewed a cup of tea. From a canvas sling bag he took out a message stick and a sheet of paper. He sat for some time wondering what to say to one who meant life and death to him, whose reality he was so wrapped up in all the time they had known each other. With his thin sharp blade he cut out the secret symbols of the message he intended sending all these years but hadn’t done so. But he felt that now was the time he should.
He went down to the beach one more time and gathered driftwood that had come to him from unknown distant shores, perhaps from Indonesia or even from another continent, or from another world. It had been caressed by waves and wind, home to thousands of tiny sea creatures all of whom by know must have died and gone down to the ocean floor to form a deposit for seaweed to germinate and be home to marine microbial life in the dark watery world where currents raced over sand and seaweed.
He arranged the firewood in a pattern he had never used before ..He brought fire to the mystical structure, and when he had got a strong blaze of wildly dancing flames going he introduced his message stick into its hissing and roaring dance of a short lived life till the winds whipped it out with a savage and final hiss as spray and sand ended it all.
Later that evening, when the stars began to appear like messengers from afar, Rabbit took the ashes of what remained of the message stick and smeared his head and body with it and then he waded into the water to deliver the sacred message to one who called to him.
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