Void

The tear opens with the passive violence of a fault line. At opposite scales, the fault is apparent: the wound itself a mass. The skin, the earth, buckles and tears, obduction and subduction acting in perfect, violent union. This island chain, this aching, abyssal trench; this fear rising, this anger descending. 

How strange that, sunk, it will reunite with the churning mass; united in their homogeneity, their lineage dissolving in the convection and chaos. It will sink further then, one day, finally take its place again in the sun and air… the subduction-obduction-absolution pathway. But ever the churn and whirl below: there can be no satiety for the earth. To stop is to die; to consume is to play your hand at eternity.

And what is the soundtrack to the carnival? This one geological event that occurs on an all-too-human timescale? Under the deep rumbling of stone against stone: screams and whispers of rage and discontent. This inconvenience, this horror, from our one sanctuary in the inhospitable expanse.

So, too, my mind obducts and subducts and so, too, I rumble with rage and discontent. How can this sanctuary of flesh and blood and electricity act such betrayal upon me? The wound itself a mass, collapsing under the weight of betrayal and conceit; their natures lost, united in homogeneity.

I scream into the void: the darkness echoes with silence.

(Inspired by Rupi Kaur's Healing Through Words (2022, Simon & Schuster))

As she closed the door, it stuck (just as it had for the last 2 years, despite her asking for it to be fixed) and, with a sigh, she realised that this would be the last time that she would be disappointed by this place.

She pushed it back open, and took one final look: the faded carpet, the worn couch, the peeling Lino in the kitchen, the too-small table jammed in the too-small room… how had she made a home here for so long? She had scraped together the scraps of hope around her: perhaps the couch, like her heart, wasn’t so worn; perhaps the carpet, like her joy, wasn’t so faded?

Looking back now, they all spoke their truth volubly: there could be no home here. It had never truly been the fixtures: she saw now that they were some small comfort, rocks of stability in an ever-changing stream of misfortune and regret; and she, on the banks, variously parched and drowned, feeling her spirit slowly chewed away by insects and spite.

Yet each day, she had surfaced; she had brushed off the insects and tended her wounds (waking early, quietly), painted on the boldest lies she could bear, and tried again. She cleaned and cooked, and smiled and worked, and hid her distain behind gestures and pantomime. She knew this her, the Outside Her, was well-liked, and she despised Her for it. But she knew this suit was her safety, a fixture of stability as the couch and carpet, the Lino and table, so she held her enemy tightly.

Until one day, she realised that, if she let go, her tattered spirit could be lifted by the lightest breeze: somehow, cruelty and injury could be the agents of her freedom.

It was a thought at once foreign and completely at home. She woke even earlier now: to take it out, to play with it, to stretch and squeeze it, then swiftly hide away as the hour became too late. As the days wore on, though, she felt it still in her hands: small flecks caught between her fingers and under her nails. She was thankful, for the first time, for Her, for now She was a new safety, protecting this small, new hope.

And this morning, when she had taken it out, she knew she would no longer be able to hide it away. It flowed from her hands, covering wherever She had usually been, and she realised that she did not feel safe; she felt bold.

She turned away and pulled the door closed (in a final mercy, it did not stick), and walked off into the night.

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.