Hunger

 

As far as the groundskeeper knew, it had always been here, he just had to feed it.

At first, he thought it would be easy: surely so small a thing would survive on scraps? But as it grew, so did the hunger and, in its hunger, it ventured its mouth further from the house and into the grounds.

And so, too, he imagined, its roots deep into the foundations.

Afraid as he was of its insatiability, he felt protective of it. On the (now bare) ground, he built it an enclosure to keep it (and, if he were honest, others who might venture onto the grounds) safe. Now enclosed, its hunger grew and, commensurate, his devotion. Once a simple task, he watched the grounds fall to disrepair as he sought to amply supply it, lest it bore off its meagre confines and search for satiety elsewhere.

And so the gate became a fence, and the fence became a wall, first of wood, then of stone, then of steel. And still it grew and, commensurate, his desperation and resolve.

At first, it was fortuitous game: the small and likely unmissed. They disappeared, just as thoughtlessly, into the gaping, ceaseless mouth. So he sought larger prey: the misplaced and misremembered; the maligned and monstrous.

As its dissatisfaction continued, he cast a wider net; any time his resolve weakened, he remember its reach deep into the foundations and, fearing the destruction of the house, he pulled back his catch: the lost and stolen; the regretted and regrettable; the stranger and neighbour; the lover and friend.

And at last there was just him and it. He turned back to the house, sacred among the bald grounds.

And so, his eyes on the gables and windows, the eaves and entrance, he fell into the maw, and hoped he would be enough.

Dorrington

He found himself here, at the bridge. Had it been 25 years? He heard the gentle trickle of the creek and the shuddering of traffic overhead, and remembered his grandad leading his sister and him into the shallow, clear water in search of watercress. He remembered the clumps of weeds they would grasp and eagerly present for inspection, and mostly disappointment (though barely for a second).

And here was that same trickle of water and rumble of tyre on bitumen, though now he saw the detritus of both: the broken chair and plastic sheet caught in a fallen tree, the mucilaginous ooze of oil from the roadway above creeping across the timeworn concrete. 

He turned and saw now the park, and was struck with a memory of senses: the taste of freshly cut grass mixed with sweat and blood; the smell of wet eucalyptus bark steaming on parched earth; the sting of a cool breeze on sunburn, finally blooming in the shadowed green corridors beside the field. He saw snippets of bike races, skinned knees, a basketball thrown and missed (derisively, both); heard the crackle of supermarket sausages thrown on a too hot barbecue.

And with them, a flush of feelings, as jumbled and interwoven as the senses; a tangle of cords dredged from the deep in his mind. Here, regret and despair; here, love and fear; here, sadness and hope; a skinned knee and excitement; the tear of paperbark and anxiety.

How was this still here, contained in this place? Why had walls not been erected, the houses not boarded up, and roads not cut?

Instead, it lay open, unreckoned; free for all, for him, to enter, unimpeded, unprepared.

For what, he wondered, was there to reckon with? The cut grass and sweat, the eucalypt and despair? The faceless, nameless slights of childhood? The careful braking of a car avoiding a pigeon; the hurried arrogance of the next?

He stood at the edge and stared beyond. Here was where they would need to part. He helped the child down off his back, and held him. Did he envy his tiny world, constantly cycling but never changing?

He pointed the child back to the bridge, back to his sister and grandad and the vain search for watercress and, sighing, stepped back into his world.

The Bridge

 

He stares down from the bridge and he imagines turning against all he’s been told, been taught, and jumping into the algal brown of the river. He imagines the off-white spray of the sudden displacement, then the cool and quiet. His soul will carry him deeper, darker, cooler; he will feel the water around his feet thickening with silt, then around his arms, and his body, until the thickening solidifies beneath him.

He will lie down in the mud and smooth stones, among the bikes and tyres and bones. He will find comfort with the creatures of the deep darkness, their sinuous forms breaking the stillness with ripples of familiarity.

From above filters down only the memory of colour, the vague recollection of sound; a gentle snow falls around him, confirming his place in the deep.

In the stillness, he will not notice the gentle biting and gnawing; in the dark, he will only feel himself expanding, fading, as his flesh is freed from the confines of his frame and taken far beyond his resting place.

And soon he will be only the water and the dirt, and tyres and bones; he will be the swell rising and the snow falling; the off-white spray and the cool brown.

He stares down from the bridge and he imagines.

Creek

 

So here we find ourselves:

In this nursery, this sanctuary,

Pissing flowers and tyres and shards of glass.

Here, our throne; strewn with bones and ash

Here, our crown of knives and rust

Here, our sceptre, hewn of spite and dirt.

Debris and de bruit.

So here we find ourselves:

Born of water, but chained to the land;

A memory of gills and fins,

Of the cold and quiet deep.

So here we find ourselves:

Consummate yet consumed;

Tossed in this tireless flow of air and dust,

Imagining our agency in this propulsion.

So here we find ourselves: wanting.

The Beast

It was nearly a week since the beast had escaped and now, at last, he felt it stirring again: the twist of its sinuous form around his stomach; the low, menacing growl reverberating through his arms and out to his fingertips; the wordless, violent thoughts coursing up his spine and flooding his mind.

He froze, terrified, remembering the violence if its escape: the thrashing, the gnashing, the scratching as it had pulled itself up his chest and into the open air; the mad howling and snarling as it remembered freedom; the rattling, gasping breaths as it stretched its lungs for the first in a long time.

And he remembered the fight: the clawing (his, this time) to return it to its prison; the chains and locks doubled, tripled, to prevent future escape. He remembered the cold sting of the night air on his underclothed skin (how did I get here?); the burning of noise, poison and lies, anything to cover that maddening growl, the only sound he heard in the silence… and always the fear that this might be the time that he’d lose.

Perhaps there was no more fight in him: perhaps he should simply lie down and let the beast do its final damage.

So, this time, he did not run to the noise and the fight, but walked gently into the silence. He lay down beside the gently trickling stream and waited for the beast to take him.

But in the silence, he heard it was not a growl, but a whimper; the vibrations a quiet, mournful moan. Here, the beast did not seem big, but the cage seemed small.

Oh god, he thought; what have I done?

And now the beast froze: it lifted its head to sniff the dirt and water and, recognising kin, the silence rushed in to meet it…

Him.

He felt the silence course around him, felt it unlock the chains and open the door of his cage. He stepped out, cautiously; felt his feet sink into the water and earth; smelled the trees and dirt; breathed as though for the first in a long time.

And, as he sobbed, the beast held him, and he held the beast and, together, they were whole.

As Cynthia crushed the fallen leaves under foot, she felt cold air swarm around her; the awkward, shuddering crumple of the leaves transforming into the crisp snap of ice on frozen earth.
And so she, too, froze: the sound passed, but the feeling (the cold, the wind, the satisfaction of this simple pleasure) remained. Her heart grasped it, held and pulled each second to near breaking point, then wound them up and tucked them away, knowing that even these warped and tired moments would be a sanctuary later.

How she missed the cold! Not the cool, but the sort of cold that saw no impediment in walls, clothes, or flesh; the cold that consumed all; that sank into your bones and your breath; that even the brightest sunlight couldn’t touch.

How trapped she felt in this heat! Every day, the mug and the steam pressing against her, physical yet immobile, oppressive and heavy as a corpse. Was it sweat or tears? Almost always both.

She felt its sweaty fingers teasing at her, pulling her from her icy reverie; felt it smirk at her sentimentalism, still frozen in her awkward half-step. The sweat and tears stung her eyes as shame’s hand deftly propelled her forward: each shattering leaf no longer conjuring joy, but grief. She stumbled forward, for the silent safety of the burning concrete, and fell to her knees.

She would die here, she knew: not in a quiet, cool cocoon, but in the scorch and rage and sweat. Her mind and body would wilt and curl, and they would be proven right: she should never have left.

And at this thought, she stopped, and she sat.

How had she ended up here, ruled by shame and truculence, persecuted by nostalgia and sweat? In the cold, she had felt corporal; in this heat, she had become a vapour, shaped and tossed by outside forces. Where had she gone?

She held herself and remembered her shape; she touched her face and remembered the skin beneath the tears and sweat.

She reached into her heart and pulled out the moments it had tucked away and, worn and stretched though they were, she strapped them around herself and defined her own form. The more she pulled, the more generous her heart became: so many moments, of all colours and sizes, stretched and shrunk, faded and vibrant, moulded her, clothed her.

She would die here, she knew; but, perhaps, she could also live.

 

He had felt the coldness enter him again; the rock walls rising up around him, not like a prison but a cocoon, a sanctuary. The darkness, so fearsome before, was comforting here; its vice, the familiar grasp of a not-so-long forgotten friend.

He felt the cords tying him back to the world tense, then slacken, as though cut from a distance. He bundled them around himself and, in the grasp of the cold darkness, wove them into a net; each knot, a connection half-remembered; the potential of a glance, a smile; the quiet echo of loss, not as a scream, but a fading whimper.

He clothed himself in half, and cast the other into the dark, but it caught only on the rocks around him, brought back only twigs and dirt. He repaired it, in earnest at first, tightening and expanding the weave in the hope his luck might turn; but eventually, he cast it out one last time and gave it up to the quiet.

Unfamiliar voices and thoughts echoed in, and then drifted past, their fading syllables plucking at his cloak. He gasped as it tightened around him, the memory of its original design tensing and twisting at the sound.

He wrenched it off but, weakened, could only cast it at his feet.

“At least there is peace here,” he said.

And the cloak replied, “In this hollow, there can be no peace, only silence.”

 

Pushed, as he was by the cacophony of life, he fell into the shrub; the scream of his breath and the scraping of his stumbling feet tearing into the silence. Further he stumbled, the trees growing higher around him, the gravity of the bush replacing the push of the world beyond, until he reached the creek: the pulling gently released him and he slowed into the water.

And there he sat, in the silence; his breath synchronising with the breeze as though, like the rustling leaves, it was also blowing through him: the screams silenced, his feet finally still.

Soon, though, he realised that the silence was not so quiet at all. He heard the bird calls (three, four, six…), the buzz of insects (but no tell of their sting); felt the water and air roll around him, alternating warm, cool, slow, fast… it rose around him as a symphony, his own sounds gone.

But, no, he was part of it; an instrument of his own, yes, but enmeshed in this orchestra.

He lay back into himself and felt the water and dirt enrobe him as he slowly sank down; felt the tree roots reach out to hold his hands and steady his feet; felt his heat become its warmth; its cold, his cool.

Together they lay: as the sun and moon cycled on; and they rose and fell with the rain and tide; breathing and sighing… together.

 

The pub had never been as full as it was on the night of the McKenzie fire. Whiskey and beer, drunk and spilled in equal measure, flowed freely to the patrons, drunk and riled in equal measure, but ever wary of the plank June kept under the premixes in case anyone got too unruly.

The first wisps of smoke barely ignited curiosity amongst the throng, as though even they were too distracted by the frivolity to bother the crowd with something so serious, but soon the wisps became a wall, pressing and pushing, as coughing and confusion spread through the patrons.

It was Dan Lewis (barely 46, the balloons hadn’t even made it to the outside bin) who first connected the pieces, through prescience (or a surreptitious headcount), and asked if anyone had seen the McKenzies; the mildly camouflaged panic amplified as it echoed from mouth to ear and off the plaster walls.

But soon the panic fell to silence, the path forward clear despite the thickening smoke. Neighbours (as they all were) avoided each other’s glances in tacit agreement: the McKenzies (neighbours in geography only) would manage, or not, as God saw fit. So windows were closed, cigarettes relighted, and drinks (despite June’s uncharacteristically unstable hand) refilled. And, as the fog of woodsmoke, tobacco and whiskey settled into the deepening night, the matter was forgotten.

June (née McKenzie) pulled up her coat as the bitter cold of near dawn settled, and she clicked the final lock on the pub’s back door. As expected, the old shed (had her father used it last, or her grandfather?) had been far enough off to allay suspicion. She wondered how long they’d burn and choke before it was too late.

The shed rasped a parched splinter into the breeze: it hit the wall and settled in the dry grass, its glow growing into a flame.

And as the murmurs of confusion turned into screams of terror, she turned away from the town that had been a neighbour only in geography and, family in arm, disappeared into the bush.