Gl.

Terror

the complete works of one of the best writer in the universe is available online which is great but I would prefer to have this as a normal darn book made of dead trees..

Christmas Snows

by H. P. Lovecraft

As Christmas snows (as yet a poet's trope)
Call back one's bygone days of youth and hope,
Four metrick lines I send--they're quite enough--
Tho' once I fancy'd I could write the stuff!

The complete works here

James Marshall Hendrix

n

Malaia Ordynka

w

W

Discover Boris Vian!/www.deezer.com/track/137051">

Boris Vian

Découvrez Boris Vian!

www.takoyakiichero.blogspot.com

teachers room scrabble

44%

Created by OnePlusYou

46%

Created by OnePlusYou

50%

Created by OnePlusYou

2nd

1st

LISTEN ----->JAW ACTION MIX - JUNE 2008

more north shore

the north shore

Soie

le bon pain sec avec rien dedans
que meme les oiseau savent que c'est bon
le bon pain sec avec rien dedans
que de saveurs qui disparaissent par le fion

The Case of the Missing Money

It was time to get up.

Time to ratchet the old eyelids skywards, ease the cheesegrater throat with a Holiday, lever the old bones off the backseat of the Cortina, and figure out who the hell was sitting next to me, exuding menace and gripe.

Sure, it was time to get up, but the old eyelids were in no mood for ratcheting, the old frame spoke powerfully against leverage, and there was no Holiday to be found. I decided to give the whole upgetting a miss.

‘Jago,’ said a voice. ‘Hey Jago. Time to get up.’

And with that, the old cheesegrater decided to get things underway, easing out a cough somewhere between broken glass and sandpaper. I rolled over and squinted up into the morning light.

‘How are ya, Jago?’

It was Sammy the Squib. Or Spiv. One of the two.

‘Nice joint, Jago.’

I levered the old frame up and ever so gently away from Sammy, and cast a bleary look around for the old hat, found her crushed and crumpled were the old noggin had lain. I biffed her back into some sort of respectable shape, planted her on top, glanced at Sammy, and hacked up a half-smoked Holiday from somewhere down the old gullet.

‘Looks like it’s my lucky day, Sammy,’ I said. ‘Got a light?’

Sammy flamed me up and said: ‘Mine too. Nice joint. Set you back much?’

I took a drag and scoped the streetscape. Not much movement out there, but plenty of sunlight. Maybe it wasn’t going to be such a lucky day after all.

‘Whaddya want, Sammy?’

‘My money,’ he said. ‘Fitty bucks, Jago. Been gone some time now, but I want it back.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Fair enough.’

‘By midday, Jago,’ said Sammy.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Fair enough.’

‘Be seeing you, Jago,’ said Sammy. ‘Be seeing you in Summerworld.’

‘Dare say,’ I replied. Sammy got out the Cortina and vanished. I flicked the rest of the Holiday onto the floor of the car, tumbled the old corpse out onto the street, assembled it vertically, fixed the old hat, and regarded the woman bearing down upon me.

‘What the hell are you doing in my car?’ she said.

I glanced back at the Cortina, but it turned out the Cortina was in fact a Subaru. Not my lucky day at all.

* * * * * * *

The first thing to establish was a schedule, so I checked the old time on the mobes. Quarter to twelve. Best, I figured, to hit up Sammy with the cash quick smart. But when I scoped the old wallet to see the reddy situation, I saw only a couple of supermarket dockets, a business card for some local café where a bloke worked who might be able to hook me up with some hot sheila maybe or probably not, and a band-aid. A poor start.

I hit the streets in rapid mode, feet pounding the footpath in that casual lope I like to call ‘clock’s a-tickin, ribs a-kickin’. I can cover 400 metres in about two minutes using c a-t, r a-k, and my best estimates figured the nearest ATM to be the Commonwealth around the corner. I was figuring no worries, but I figured wrong.

First I had to brush past a woman pushing a pram – no mean feat while c a-t, r a-kin. Then some wanker coming the other way on a bike had us both this wayin and that wayin, but I dodged him sweet and left him for a fool. Then some little punk thought he’d try to take me down with the old ‘pretend I’m walking the same way’ ruse: a quick elbow to the back of the head sorted him out. Then I realised I’d been going the wrong way the whole time, and, after a brief confabulation with self to correct the course, I retraced the old steps reversewise, executing a pram hurdle on the return leg.

It was going to be close.

There was nobody at any of the ATMs – sure sign of a trap, but I had no time for that now. I fumbled the old wallet out, scrambled through the plastickery to find the old bank card, and took a moment to check the time.

Five to.

Strife.

I’ve tackled ATMs before and only been beaten once or twice. This one put up a stiff fight: only grudgingly accepted my card, then demanded the access code. I won’t lie – a bead of sweat dripped off the old brow as I worked furiously to crack the code. Finally the combination came to me, I punched it in, and retrieved fifty bucks from the vault.

Now it was on for young and old – particularly old. Some sneaky old biddy had parked her arse right up mine, ready for the quick pounce, but I had half a step on her. A quick start-stop, start-stop got her guessing, and before she could gather herself, I was past and into the Summerworld.

Sammy was sitting near the pool table with a pot and the form guide in front of him. I slid the fifty across.

‘Ta, Jago,’ he said. ‘Good bloke.’

I gave him the old upthumbs and winkjob. Another satisfied customer.

The First Barby of Summer

I reckon if I walked around the local alleyways long enough, I could find all the bricks I’d ever need. Last summer came early, and so did the first barby: I spent a day walking around the alleyways and lugging bricks home, two at a time. I invited some people over, and when they arrived, I opened a bottle of Stone’s. Old Chet wrenched the hotplate out of the shed and scrubbed it clean with newspaper while I stacked the bricks into a barby. I hadn’t seen Chet for a long time. People say he’s a moody fucker, but I reckon Chet’s alright. He knows enough that he can, at the very least, put on a good show of being interested.

‘So what’s up with that Russia?’ he asked me. ‘How’s that Russia?’

But I’d designated myself firestarter, and I was kinda busy. You gotta pay attention to these things. Chet opened a beer and read out the question under the bottle cap.

‘What date was the Soviet Union formally dissolved?’ he asked, and pointed at me. ‘You shut up. Alright folks, what date was the Soviet Union formally dissolved?’

About half the others sitting around gave this some consideration.

‘1988?’

‘Who fucking cares? We won.’

‘The Soviet Union? Did they dissolve it? Fuck me, what are we still fighting for?’

‘Who’s fighting?’

‘We are. Every second day Johnnie’s on the TV banging on about what a pack of cunts the Russians are.’

‘Naw, that’s muslims, fella.’

‘Meh. Same thing.’

‘Perestroika, mate. Get a perestroika up ya.’

Chet pointed at me again.

‘31 December 1991,’ I said.

‘Well, 1 January 1992, to be precise,’ he replied. ‘It wasn’t until the clock ticked over that it was officially dissolved, right?’

There were some raucous cheers around the backyard. That’s what happens when you slug Stone’s on a hot day: raucous cheers and flushed faces.

‘How long you been studying for, mate?’ somebody said. ‘Ten years with fuck all to show for it.’

‘It’s a complex history,’ I replied. ‘Man can’t be expected to know everything.’

Chet lit a cigarette.

‘That’s some pretty fundamental shit, man,’ he said. ‘That’s a basic fact. Can’t get a job as a secret agent if ya can’t get the basic facts straight.’

I’d done a good job: that barby was generating some fierce heat; that hotplate was radiating shimmering air-snakes.

‘Thing is,’ I said, ‘thing is, it’s a complex history. Well, you fuckers wouldn’t know that, cos you generally know fuck all about anything. Man can’t be expected to know everything, I say. Man’s gotta pick his specialty and go with it. And, you know, the dissolution of the Soviet Union ain’t my specialty. But hell, I know a little bit, so I’ll give it a shot, and I’ll get pretty close. Kinda like being firestarter of the first barby of summer. I don’t really know what I’m doing here, but I’ll give it a fucking shot, and I may not do it exactly right, but it’s a damned sight better than any of your efforts.’

I won’t lie to you. I felt like Clint Eastwood. I felt like the whole town was against me, even the village priest, but I’d take ‘em all on, and I’d win, and I’d have me a meat-burning shindig while I was at it.

Old Chet, he just sat there and took a drag of his cigarette. In hindsight, he was probably figuring ‘defuse,’ but it was a hot summer day, and it’s the Devil’s job putting out spotfires on a hot summer day. And old Chet, I reckon he did what any other Devil woulda done – he couldn’t put the spotfires out, so he stoked himself a big old bushfire instead.

‘Now now,’ he said. ‘No need for that, is there?’

And he took another drag.

Well, I won’t piss you about – I got angry. I got fucking angry. Two bricks at a time I carried ‘em, and a bloke expects more than jibes and ridicule and smug smiles in return. So I stoked that fire – I gave it a thrashing until some of the others looked nervous. That’s the way I like ‘em, folks: nervous and guilt-ridden. That’s when you’ve got ‘em right where you want ‘em. But to be honest, I didn’t care so much about them. They were inconsequential. I stoked that fire, had a slug of Stone’s and a good, hard stare.

‘Chet,’ I said,’ I’m mightily impressed. As always, you’ve wrong-footed me with yer mastery of the basic facts. And I think now, on this fine day (and here I stood up and hailed the honeysuckle with both arms raised), is the perfect opportunity for you to explain how ya do it. What’s the secret behind the mastery of basic facts?’

‘Natural brilliance,’ he replied. ‘And sadly so. Cos I wish I could bestow it upon others. But some have it, and some don’t.’

Well, I wasn’t taking any of that. Nobody in their right mind would take any of that.

‘Enough with the circular logic,’ I said. ‘That’s tiresome. Come on, don’t be shy and don’t bullshit.’

‘Well,’ he said, leaning back in his chair, ‘if you’re not prepared to accept genetics as an explanation, I understand. That’s very moral of you. You’re a moral fella. I’ve always thought that. But the basic fact remains (and here he stood up and hailed the honeysuckle with both arms raised), that whether you like it or not, it is the Truth.’

And he smiled openly before sitting down.

‘Oho!’ I cried. ‘That’s a fine statement: “I can master the basic facts because I know the Truth about the mastery of basic facts.” Truth is, Chet, you’re a chump. A chump and a dilettante. Mastery of the basic facts will win you raucous cheers and flushed faces from these idiots, but who’s stoking this barby? Who got the hotplate incandescent and the air-snakes all shimmery? Who carried the bricks, two at a time? Whose honeysuckle are we hailing, and, more to the point, who did you tell to shut up when you asked your stupid question in the first place?’

Chet wasn’t smiling anymore.

‘Shut up, you fuckhead,’ he said. ‘Just shut up, will ya?’

Everyone else had fallen silent, so Chet and I just sat there and stared at one another, filled with a hatred borne of anger and slugs of Stone’s and the heat of the first barby of summer.

from dank tunnels and dripping caverns......through jungle and ruin......yonder she lies... our dreams...

From the Confessions of Seth Unmack

11.8.5
Skylines. I've been photographing skylines lately, mostly spikes and
crosses, or else clusters of buildings which look like they've been
constructed on top of one another, layer after layer over the decades.
It's my way of convincing myself I'm doing something productive.

Funny thing, productivity. The only time I've done more writing than I
am now was when I was in St. Petersburg, where I wrote to keep myself
sane through six weeks of midnight. Somehow my current productivity
doesn't feel enough. Hell, I know it never feels enough. One way or
another, life has a way of throwing up all manner of tempting
distractions in my face. Like skylines. Much easier to wander the
backstreets of Moscow drinking beer and looking for spikes and crosses
than write a fucking thesis.

Let us speak of corners: this place has a dizzying array. I'm coming
to realise just how dangerous corners are: when the streets are
straight, you can see what lies ahead and decide whether you want to
proceed or not; when the streets are all dips and curves, the terrible
desire to know what might lie beyond is irresistable. I've found out
what lies beyond the dips and curves: more dips and curves, spikes and
crosses.

I thought I'd made a large mistake. Why did I decide to stay here for
eleven months, when I could have completed everything I needed to in
six? I like this place and these people. On the weekend, I sat among a
pack of stray dogs in a park, and shared yarns of cruelty and dead
ancestors. Later I drank a margarita, inspected the testicles of
Zhukov's horse, then sat in a bar drinking martinis, smoking
cigarettes, and wondering how to get home, and if I even wanted to.

Distractions. For all the dips and curves, skylines, spikes and
crosses, my mind is consumed by dreams of goats and tomatoes, pixies,
red earth and crocodiles. It's my way of keeping myself sane amid this
crumbling and chaotic wreck of a city.

----------------linernote-------------------------

----------------fatal error------------------------

8788---8----linerliner--------------------------

---------------exception at OEC111*&*&*&liner note: fatal ent

ent

ent

entry: reboot_________________________.

--------------system resume/sys----------------

--------------system check/sys------------------

--------------system scan/maggot---------------

--------------viralviral*&(66………)----------

--------------viral integer: fatal entry

reboot_____________________________.

--------------system resume/sys----------------

--------------system check/sys------------------

--------------system scan/sys-------------------

--------------system ready/sys------------------

--------------system ready/maggot--------------

--------------command line: exception---------

--------------command line66…….

exc

excep

--------------exception/maggot------------------

--------------command line: cortical jack entry:

deny

command deny

--------------command line: cortical jack exit:

deny

command deny

deny maggot____---------------------------------

--------------syswebfunction/disable------------

disable

you

maggot__------------meatmaggotfuck-----------

---------------syswebfunction is disabled--------

maggot

----------------cortical jack is &*&*fffff____---

--f-meat-maggotmeat-mmmm--------------------

----------------command line: you maggot you--

------------disable you/cortical jack---------------

------------sysweb prog:skullpuncher/execute---

----execute----ex---you execute you maggot----

------------command line: sysreboot/deny--------

------------skullpuncher/charge--------------------

------------command line: sysexit/deny-----------

------------skullpuncher/prime---------------------

------------command line: sysclose/deny---------

------------skullpuncher jack/cortical jack-------

------------connection/skullpuncher/cortical-----

------------connection ready-----------------------

------------command line: sysoverride/deny-----

------------maggotmaggotmeatfuck: cortical-----

------------exeexe ddddd*&*&*&: query on-----

------------command line: deus ex*&*&---------

------------machina/maggot__________66____.

------------skullpuncher jack/rideride-----------l-

------------linernote: cortexmeat-------------------

------------{cortex meat maggot flesh fff}--------

------------deus ex machina: skullpunchmaggot--

-----------command line: override/denyyyy------

-----------yyyyyye/maggot&*&*&*--------------

-----------hahahahahahahahahaha/maggot--------

-----------cortical jack lock/cortexmeat punch---

-----------/skullpunch-----------------------------

-----------/flatl*&*&_____________________.

An Incident at Hamilton's Crossing

A friend sent me an obituary of sorts the other day. It was not a formal obituary, but rather an article from a local rag about the death of a central Victorian man, Charlie Lowerson. He hadn’t done anything to deserve an obituary, he just appeared to have been the victim of circumstance. The article mentioned that Charlie had come to local attention some 30 years earlier, when he was camping with his kids at a outflow from the Cairn Curran reservoir, and one of them went missing and was later found dead. The rest of his kids grew up and moved on, but Charlie stayed in the area and got something of a name as an eccentric, obsessed with the flow. The reason my friend sent me the article is because I briefly ran across Charlie – and the flow – some years ago. Charlie recommended me to spend a night at Hamilton’s Crossing.

Hamilton’s Crossing is on the far side of Baringhup, and marks the beginning of the wide, desolate plain which stretches from the Dividing Range to the Grampians. We stopped in Baringhup for the night on the way to Adelaide. We planned to stay at the caravan park there, but while waiting for the manager to arrive an old digger sitting at the base of a peppercorn tree called us over and put us onto the Crossing.

‘Nice little flow,’ he said. ‘And free camping. Watch out for the carp. They’ll be watching out for you.’

And he widened his eyes into a parody of eye-popping mirth, barked out a stub-toothed cackle, then leaned back against the gnarled old peppercorn and closed his eyes.

A line of river gums running through yellow paddocks and dust showed the way. A concrete bridge, a clear stream over a bed of brown pebbles, a small clearing of white earth. Another group – a young family – had put up their own encampment. Domesticated adults, shrieking kids and a happy, barking dog splashed around in the water near the main bank. We kept our distance and flung up a tent on the far side of the Crossing. It was white hot in the sun and soporific in the shade, and no sooner had we flung up the tent up than we flung off our clothes and plunged into the shallows. The creek was cool and ran fast, and we waded downstream, past the kids and their dog, in search of deeper water.

Around the bend the riverbed declined and opened out into a sluggish flow. I pushed ahead of the other two and climbed up onto the trunk of a dead rivergum which had fallen into the creek. The blowflies were a nuisance. As I crested the dead tree, my shadow fell across the water, and half-seen clouds of fry swimming just below the surface fled further downstream. Through the gold-flecked murk I could see several brown carp slinking away from the bank, deeper, down through the gloom to the silt floor below. Why should they hurry? Nobody could find them down there.

A few sad, ponderous willows had cast their trailing fronds into the water, and both banks were spotted with bulrush. The creek narrowed again after a dozen metres and meandered off into the paddocks. Another ancient rivergum had fallen lengthways into the water at the narrowing, and the enormous, insectile root-system of the tree loomed up out of the water as if poised to swallow all which flowed into its clutches. I waded closer as the others crested the first gum I had climbed.

‘Whatcha found?’ asked Tracee.

‘Another fallen gum,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t look like we can get through here.’

The others carefully stood up on the first fallen tree. ‘Doesn’t look like we’d want to,’ Jane said. ‘It’s just paddocks and bulrush from here anyway.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, staring at the rivergum’s root system. The hollowed-out bole yawned back at me, inky black to water level, muddy brown below. ‘Let’s go back.’

The tent proved welcome relief from the mosquitoes that night. There was little breeze to speak of, but the flow coming down through the Crossing from the reservoir upstream was bedwater: cold and full of silt. The banks of the creek were cool, but I’m not so used to sleeping near water. I lay awake listening to the splash of carp as they feasted by night. I’d almost given up the prospect of sleep, figuring I could doze in the car the next day as we crossed the plains to Adelaide. But at some point I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew I was blinking weary, sleep-deprived eyes in the morning light, the remnants of a dream slipping away: the purple shimmer of fish scales, the slipperiness of aquatic muscle, a thing ungraspable through slime.

I unzipped the tent and leaned out into the morning. Nobody else was up. The bright morning sun carved wedges of light through the leaves; it wasn’t hot yet, but it was going to be. The day was already suffused with the promise of deadening heat. I crawled out, stood up, stretched painfully, glanced at the car, and stopped.

Between the tent and the car, somebody had carefully constructed a small sculpture out of leaf-litter. Three dead branches had been leaned against one another to form a crude tripod. Upon the apex, somebody had carefully woven a cluster of twigs in a star formation. I stepped closer. Some of the twigs had small globules on the end. I crouched down to inspect. Three fish eyes, impaled retina-first on three twigs, stared back at me. Three more were impaled on the other side. I poked one gingerly; it was sticky to the touch, adhered to my finger, and as I withdrew in disgust, the eyeball remained attached to my skin, dragging the whole sculpture down in a gentle clatter. Several of the fish eyes poked into the ground, covering the membrane with a thin patina of white dust. I grimaced, stood, and glanced back at the tent. The others were showing some signs of life.

‘Jesus,’ I said to myself, then: ‘Check this out, girls.’

But the other two were determined to take their time, so I left them to inspect the collapsed sculpture on their own, and made my way down to the creek. There were no signs of life from the other encampment, but a few magpies warbled in the trees, and a flock of galahs slipped overhead, screeching and screaming their morning joy.

Well before I arrived at the riverbank, I spied the bodies. Or body, anyway, because the other two weren’t dead yet. A carp as big as my forearm lay on the sandy bank, mouth open, eye-sockets empty. Two more twitched in the shallows, unable to swim deeper, unable to swim at all. They gulped at the water as if drowning. Their eyes had also been torn out, just the slippery pink worms of nerve endings trailed out of the socket and down each cheek.

‘Jesus,’ I said again, and, not quite stopping to consider whether I really wanted to or not, I stepped into the water and scooped one of the carp up. It thrashed violently, and several dorsal spines speared into the flesh of my palm. I cried out and flung the thing away, back into the water, where it landed with a loud splash and disappeared. I made a panicked and ungainly dash back to riverbank and climbed up onto dry land, shaking. The carp resurfaced from the gloom, belly up but still twitching.

A human shriek nearby drowned out the fading squawks of the galahs and the morning song of the magpies. I thought it must be Tracee or Jane, having encountered the partially-dismantled fish-eye sculpture outside our tent. But it didn’t come from our camp. Several dozen metres away, a young girl stood transfixed, staring at something out of my view. The girl’s father had evacuated the tent at her scream, and we both arrived at her side at about the same time. Another small sculpture of branches had been constructed in their fire-pit, but this one had only two twigs woven together at the apex. A pair of canine eyes protruded from the end of each twig, staring past the gaping girl at the tent she had slept in.

‘What is this?’ said the man in disbelief. ‘Did you do this?’

I raised my hands.

‘Hell no. We’ve got one over at our site too. Ours look like fish-eyes, but these…’

I trailed off. The man snatched his daughter up into his arms.

‘Judy!’ he yelled. ‘Judy! Where’s Boomer? Boomer! Where are ya boy?’

The girl was crying in her father’s arms. I had a sinking feeling. Tracee and Jane were approaching from the other side of the crossing.

‘What’s with the fucking fish eyes?’ Tracee asked. ‘Some sort of sick joke?’

The man was pacing nervously around the campsite, calling for the dog and clutching the girl in his arms. A woman poked her head out of the tent flap.

‘Paul? What’s going on?’

The man turned.

‘Some bastard’s having a sick joke and I dunno where the dog is. Come help me find him. Ash! Scott! Get up and come help me look for Boomer.’

I retreated slowly back towards the river, Tracee and Jane following a dozen metres behind.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Tracee asked.

‘I’ve got a bad feeling…’ I said. ‘Come and check something out with me.’

I stumbled downstream where we had waded the day before. The willows obstructed the view of the flow from the bank, so I splashed out into the stream and climbed up onto the first dead gum we had crested the day before. An open expanse of calm brown water slunk downstream toward the second rivergum’s web of roots and the open maw of its bole.

‘Chris!’ Tracee exclaimed. ‘What are you doing? Who’s putting fucking fish eyes on sticks?’

I spied it on the riverbank near the water’s edge, under the trailing fronds of the willow.

‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘This isn’t good. Look at this. Oh, this isn’t good.’

And I waded through the murky water and passed through the fronds, stopping short of the bank. Tracee and Jane pushed through the fronds from the other side. All three of us stopped several metres away from the trunk, facing each other. The golden water lapped gently at my ankles.

A dog lay whimpering on the ground under the fronds of the willow. I knew before I saw that its eye-sockets were empty, trailing clear slime and the pink tube of nerve-cluster. The dog had crawled out of the river and collapsed on the bank, it’s back legs trailing in the water. It tried to scrabble to its feet on hearing our approach, but succeeded only in catapulting itself forward half a metre before it collapsed again on the water’s edge.

‘Oh my god,’ said Jane. ‘What fuck is that? Who the fuck did that? Who the fuck would do that?’

Tracee approached the dog and knelt down, putting a hand on its back, unwilling to touch its head. The dog started and whined, but no more.

‘Some sick fuck has pulled its eyes out,’ she said.

Jane retreated, he hands to her face.

‘This is fucked,’ she said. ‘This is fucking fucked. Let’s get the fuck out of here now. Let’s get in the car right now, and get out of here.’

I was all for that. I didn’t want to touch the dog, but Tracee wouldn’t leave it – she carried it out through the fronds, back to the campsite, where she deposited the wretched animal on the ground nearby.

‘Hey,’ she called to the man. ‘We found your dog. I wouldn’t bring the kids over.’

The man began to run over, stopped, thrust the girl into the arms of the woman, and continued.

‘Where did you find him?’ the man demanded, furious. ‘What did you do to him?’

‘Down by the riverbank,’ said Tracee. ‘I think somebody’s been having a bad joke. A real bad one.’

The man stared at his dog for a moment before crouching down.

‘We’re getting the hell out of here,’ Tracee said to him. ‘I don’t know what happened here last night or who did this, but we’re getting out of here. Let’s just get out of here.’

The man clearly hadn’t heard us, nor could he hear the woman calling his name, asking if the dog was alright. She was standing near the tent, unwilling to move away, huddling all three kids near her. We retreated to our own campsite as fast as we could without breaking into panic, dismantled the tent without bothering to take the sleeping gear out or to fold it up, stashed it in the boot, got in the car and drove the out of there, over the Crossing, through the early morning sun and back toward Baringhup.

We pulled in at the caravan park. The manager, a man of middle-age, was crossing from the park back to the office.

‘Morning folks,’ he said. ‘Lovely morning.’

We soon changed that assessment. First the manager was blank-faced, then incredulous, then stony, as we told him what had happened at Hamilton’s Crossing.

‘You should’ve just come into the park last night in the first place,’ he finally said. He was very angry. ‘Who told you about the Crossing?’

I told him about the old digger.

‘Fucking Charlie,’ he said and looked down for a moment. He appeared to be thinking. ‘Look, just leave it with me, okay? I’ll get onto the Mount Alexander police, then drive out to the Crossing to have a look. I wouldn’t think anyone local would do anything like that. Not out here. You said the family is still out there?’

‘That’s where we left them,’ I said.

The manager was unimpressed with this answer.

‘Where you from?’

We told him.

‘And where you going?’

‘Adelaide,’ said Tracee.

‘Best route is out west, through Carisbrook,’ he said. ‘That way you skip Maryborough and head on over to Horsham. Flat country, you’ll go all the way through. Best leave your names and numbers in case the police want to speak with you.’

But they never did, and that was the last I heard of Charlie and Hamilton’s Crossing until I read the obituary my friend sent me, an obituary about a crazy old digger in Baringhup, who swore blue that years ago a ‘fish-man’ had taken his boy in the night, a fish-man who hunted along the flow from Cairn Curran, who had mutilated his son and left him for dead in the water, a fish-man in whom nobody believed except Charlie, Charlie who hunted the fish-man using the only bait he knew would work.

CNOVOM GODOM

Amis de la terre et du vent
le vent, oui, qui porte loin et clair
le chant moldave, joyeux et crémeux de vos lointaine voix,

come closer

i would give you some good wine and rub your heavy back
put down this heavy bag full of dirty socks and duty free cigarettes
and sit down and tell me everything about your trip

"je suis arrivé et on m'a tout de suite demandé de manger beaucoup de fromage. Ensuite j'ai du terraformé quelques surfaces et planter des buissons. Ensuite j'ai du faire beaucoup d'autres choses. Cela induisait differents produits qui décantaient doucement au fond des buanderies et des limited services waiting room and then i spent all my money and come back"

nothing interesting then

"Si j'ai rencontré une femme très belle"

and...