I guess there's no point in saying it,

That all my colleagues have swallowed lies. As our bodies slowly give way or give out and the Behemoth just rolls right over the top of us and keeps going under the misapprehension that we are worth something to the system. That its a caring industry.

A five story building goes up around us while a short woman with a work worn face and a knee going gives out sandwiches to dialysis patients and does a sixteen hour day because well we are always short and its an essential service and no one wants to work anymore.

I know its a tired complaint.

Like a broken record

Here we go again...

But the money keeps pouring into buildings and better facilities and robots in the operating theatres streamlining services and making things more efficient.

The sun is out there's a gentle breeze and its a little cool. The river is bathed in sunlight and there's rolling hills on the other side. Corella's in flocks flying low along the rivers course, just a foot or two above the water.

My insides feel tinder dry. Its like a desert in there and I really dont know if it will be flooded i ever again. When I traveled with T_ we only ever had one fight. I realize now we were only good because of who she was.

I was eleven when I first met the pastors wife. She picked my mother and I up from Spencer St train station and we got into her car and she drove us back through the streets of Mellbourne, which captivated me with all the bluestone and Victorian architecture, so very different to the flat urban savannah of Adelaide that was familiar, to the Church where she and her husband lived in Ascot Vale. We stayed with them for two weeks.  It was my very first encounter with the Christian religion.

When I was twelve

I asked my mother if I would go to hell

And she looked sideways,

Uncertain, 

Torn.

She said,

I don't know. Maybe.

Leaving the Abyss 

wide open for me to fall.

Many years later 

I began painting falling figures with tortured

or down turned faces arms and fingers splayed

I walked the streets of where I lived pasting

them up on hidden lanes and walls.

There's something about a supermarket car park at dusk on Saturday night.

Its about 5.30 and the sun is low on the horizon and the air is April crisp. People are wearing hoodies, but not yet scarves and or beanies except for the older people shuffling out of Coles with a bag of carrots or potatoes. There's an obscured skyline over the roof tops with silhouetted church spires and Victorian architecture that holds within its angles ominous memory.

Next week its seven years since I started my job here.

There's only one other job I've had that lasted longer and that was stacking shelves at Coles.

When the Emergency Doctor asked me what medications I took, I said none. "Oh, hang on..." He stopped writing. Holding the pen over the paper. "I used to take SSRI's" He continued scribbling. I watched his hand forming the phrase, Mild Depression on the bit of paper. I wanted to laugh but didn't. I looked away, out of the cubicle at the frantic action going on outside with the blue plastic curtain half open.

I

Coming down the side of the Mountain looking west over the paddocks of Yendon towards mountains sister, I stopped when I noticed a small bird in the foliage of a Blackwood. I looked up, the grey sheet of cloud behind casting the trees on the slope going up to the summit in silhouette. I could see movement amongst the foliage and at first took it to be the movement of the trees in the wind.

The boy stood watching the white commodore as it crunched over the gravel towards the highway,  rolling slowly over corrugations, deep ruts and potholes. He put his hand up to shield his eyes in the glare and in the rear view mirror, Angela watched him grow smaller and a slight grin creased the sun damaged skin at the corners of her mouth. He looked as if he would burst into tears at any moment. A little chuckle escaped her as she watched him, before swinging onto the road and heading south.

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