In That Dark Heart

 





In that dark heart of betrayal, when he lamented everything, most particularly falling off the wagon, bullets burrowing through his brain, staring at the floor, staring out the window, a suicidal self abnegation, there seemed, for a moment, no hope.

All the images were strange. Millions of crystal marbles flowing down from the escarpment, flocks of birds circling over carcasses on a battlefield, the derelict outskirts of cities where all had been destroyed, a spooky sense of everything lost. He just needed to go walkabout. 

The wild crew he had hung with half a century before were mostly gone. Had died at the scene. Were long gone. And those who remained were all on the way out.

Poor old Dr Stephen, who had outlived his cancer prognosis by several years, was now on his very last legs. 

Michael, now 72, who he had known since 1970s, was hanging around in Bondi waiting for a call from the hospital to have a heart operation. After having the jab in order to travel. Although he would probably never make the connection, or admit to it. If there was a connection. There were certainly enough negative stories about. 

Or poor old Billy, now in a home, who had put on his play The Police Commissioner's Grandmother back in the 1970s in Adelaide, and they looked back with a kind of wonder and joy. Before the world moved on apace. And their youthful energy and desire to confront the social conservatism of the day now seemed very mild indeed. 

All of them were gone, or going, an opportunity lost. And he had no one to blame but himself. 

Meanwhile, in this strange future they had already landed in, the conflict between Israel and Iran was escalating by the hour, thousands of people were dying in the Ukraine War, Gaza had been destroyed, and the indifference of humans one for another never seized to amaze. 

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