Mud

A king tide sunset in the Kimberly.

In the town of Broome a few hours to the north a few hundred grey nomads crowd the balcony of the Mangrove Hotel to view a natural phenomena.

A giant new Moon pokes out from behind a wall of cloud. Its reflection begins to stretch over the mangroves as it lifts into the sky. A narrow beam of light playing with the tidal ridges in the sand of the mangroves below.

The digeridoo drones and the bimli go clack clack clack.

It looks like a set of golden steps descending from the heavens.

 

Down the hill in the shadow of the Hotel. Theres a pile of shells, large as a dune. A shell midden. I like to imagine what it was like on that spot thousands of years ago.

To know what it meant when they saw that moonbeam bounce across the mud.

 

 

I (never) Tried

I never promised perfection.

I’m not a perfectionist.

Gotta love that grain.

“We Can’t Drink Thank You’s”

 

Breaking Chronology

You should never start a story with someone waking up. It’s cliché.

These were the first thoughts that came to my mind as I awoke in the back of my car. It was dark. Wet.

Raining.

It had been a long time since I’d seen rain. I immediately missed the endless summer of the Kimberly’s dry season as I crawled into the drivers seat and put the air con on.

It was fucking cold.

I’d blown it. Gone too far South too quickly and here I was in a Dominoes Pizza Carpark at 4am listening to the generic thud of a club beat a few doors down. In fucking Mandurah.

I rolled on. Got a coffee from a pig-faced man at a Caltex who slid it through a drawer in the window as the shop was locked up. ‘Scooby Snacks’ by the Fun Loving Criminals played over the crackly speakers. Rain fell lightly. The coffee burnt my tongue.

I went to check the spot. Famous for bodyboarders. The sun was coming up. I was not optimistic.

Chaotic Explosions of water erupting with the stiff southerly whipping spray into the rock groyne. Rebounding swells which gave the place its status flew at every possible angle into fresh swells.

A chopped up whirlpool. Not inviting.

I surveyed the scene and spied two lads couched over a fire. The bigger of the two spied me too, and waved me over.

He invited me to the fire, and gave me a beer.

We drank and smoke as the sun came up. The big lad was a bricky, but he’d been out bush. He’d hit everything you could think of when he drove lorries for the mines. Emu’s, Roo’s, Wedgetails, Wombats, Children, OAP’s….

His mate was a muso and had the roughest meth mouth I’d seen on a 22 year old.

We cooked a feed of fresh caught Hering and Squid and it was one of the finer little cook-ups I can recall.

When the sun was well and truly up in the sky they gave me the few remaining beers and took off.

I watched those waves smashing and bashing each other just over the rocks as I finished off the cans.

Watching what drew me here. Holding onto what made me stay.