I woke sometime in the early hours, laid flat on my back in the cool, damp air of TrailofAnts Towers (a tent in mid-west Australia). Four strangers appeared to be sat cross-legged at the foot of my bed, though Reb was completely unaware, softly twitching at her dreams. A well-presented woman slid me a black briefcase which I knew to be full of cash; a rugged man then flippantly tossed me the keys to a campervan; the third person, a meek brunette girl stuffed a wedge of free tickets to local attractions under the lip of my blanket and a fourth, much more menacing character loaned me his laptop and a bag of expensive looking electronics. It seemed appropriate to say nothing. They hung around, creating an awkward silence then joined hands and collectively prophesised “you cannot take these things for yourself, Ant; however you must lead us to the worthy seven”. Several hours later, I woke, and wrote this. Continue reading ‘Are you Captain Van-tastic?’
Monthly Archive for June, 2009
Her eyes look cold, like a pair of dried up wishing wells. Her face and torso swollen, reducing the stalk of her neck to a blunt junction. Deep black hair, yanked back to reveal the delta of a clammy forehead, from which the bridge of her nose leads down between puffy cheeks and a stern mouth. Her appearance is Neanderthal. No wait, Indian. Yes, she looks like an Indian girl disrobed of her sari and redressed in clothes of a life more ordinary. Between us, two windscreens mottled with desert flies deflect any hope of friendship. ‘Fucking hell, it’s an Aborigine!’ I think, before thinking. Stalemate at the junction to a car park, a silence so loud I fail to hear the blaring orchestra of horns. I wave her through, she passes nonchalantly. ‘What else could I do? She would of speared me!’ I joked. The joke of ignorance. The joke of persecution. I’d heard much harsher jokes en route, but never met the punch line. Continue reading ‘Showdown’
A blister; I think it looks like a blister. A sunburned baldie! I reckon that’s what it is. A jelly draped in dust? Wibble wobble. A rusty fist punching the blackened sky. So poetic! A bolt, tying down the crust of earth? Just imagine! A giant baked bean. We just need some toast and butter and sweet hot tea. A big baboon arse poking up and out! A chunk of fallen sun, stricken, lonely in the outback. So what is it? That my friends, is Uluru. Continue reading ‘Red or Dead’
Left a bit, left a bit. This t-junction? No. Down a bit. A bit more. This old gold-rush town? Warmer! Down a bit. These big round, red rocks? Getting warmer. Down a bit more. Hmmm. Ah! The little green aliens – that’s it, right? No. Warmer though. Alice Springs – yeah? Nope. What! Left a bit. Really warm now. Bloody hell – not the ‘black fella’? Very close! The desert? Colder. The flying doctor? Freezing. The boring highway? Warmer. What about that red-rock hill, whatchamacallit… Uluru? Bingo! How’d I miss that? Continue reading ‘Fibreglass Sheep’
[Editors Note: In an unprecedented grovel I'm beginning this post with an apology to all those who believed me abducted or absconded! The Outback of Australia turned out to be the most impossible region to achieve any internet time - not least because Reb and I are too tight to pay the $30 to stay in a caravan park, ergo rarely even have electricity for the laptop (and you try asking where the nearest Internet Cafe is in Willabongadongdong!). Needless to say, over the next few weeks as I descend on Perth I will be typing up a mountain of notes and bringing you up to speed. OK, grovel over - here's the latest, entitled 'Highway to Hell']:
Highway to Hell
I had it all planned. A clever tribute to the Outback, laden with full stops in place of traffic lights; commas leading you up highways; exclamation marks to record calamities; and semicolons for side trips (and brackets to let you in on the local secrets). I was going to carefully pull over at paragraphs, use capital letters to signal the beginning and a trail of… to pull you to a stop. The title? Gone Walkabout. The beginning? I start the engine. The middle? I push the accelerator. The end? I push the brake. Oh, how wrong could I be. Australia’s lineal highways have stripped me of the literary curves and swerves I usually prune, and reduced me to the arrow straight, tell-it-like-it-is truth. The sparsest, remotest… most soul-sapping… nothingness you have ever seen. Roads so straight they send you round the bend! Continue reading ‘Highway to Hell’
