A child, wan and dreamy with a sickness, despairs of her sterile surroundings; exclusively manmade and carefully clean, oppressive and lifeless. She feels this human habit extend over the globe, a plague of tidy death, the decor of the apocalypse. Washing her hands, she smiles with sudden relief as she spies hope in the corner of a mirror. Nature can breathe her soft graffiti even here.
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Winter jetty, her family sight seeing. She walked back to the two men fishing off the jetty and said hello. Drew had a kind face and wore a knitted beanie. They hadn't caught much. He caught a fish and gave it to her. She held it, caught in a child's awe and horror at the gift of ebbing life. He saw the look on her face and told her she could throw it back. She slipped it between the timbers and back into the water. The second man was very angry so she ran back up the jetty. When she grew up she understood a bit better about being hungry and wished she could have made another choice.
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The chair was covered in a durable bottle-green wool. She sat and felt the worn timber of the armrests. Grandad Mac used to sit here. He would read her stories. She would sit on his lap and feel the velvet softness of his earlobes.
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The gen set had gone off at 9pm. It was dark and still. Just the two of them sitting out the back of the staff quarters watching the stars and drinking tea. They listened to the dog's restless growl. He could hear the dingos in the surrounding hills. Blue singlet, tattoos, denim and tall stories.
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