Lachlan Plain

a: once was one
b: a fisherman
c: a simple man
a: not now
b: not here
c: here it’s cold

[the voices come from within Mitnick and without…]

a: This is not the way I understood cold.
b: not the biting morning frost
a: glasses steamed up
fingers fumbling from
numbness
b: and sharp shocks
of sensation from the heat of the coffee cup
a: the mist and early morning sun/seagulls scream
b: gentle clunk of boats nudging moorings
a hallow of cigarette smoke
a: untangle nets
b: raise sails
a: refuel outboard
b: if there is any fuel

c: this cold is different
b: it’s empty
c: impervious.

a: it’s not a cold that one feels on the tip of ones’ nose
c: it’s everywhere at once
a: all throughout this…
c: …senseless…
b: …sub-aquatic…
a: this mindlessness

[…the voices hover like flies around Mitnick’s head…]

a: thoughts, words, like jetsam, flotsam/ they nudge against me/some latch on/some drift by/some sit there/alien thoughts quickly assimilated
b: and the faces: Parents, school, friends, wife, son, and all the other men along the wharf, preparing their nets for the day
c: And all those other faces/the alien ones/I’ll ignore them/they’re not my memories/my thoughts are simple
b: I’m a simple man
a: a fisherman

[the voices in unison]
2015: (we’re not sure/the boy was about three or four we think) the fish in the bay are gone/wiped out/capsized nuclear waste tanker/bloated/ radiated/wasted
2016: fishermen relocated to central, desert mines
a: a fisherman
b: a simple man
a: don’t pretend to understand
b: the mines
c: the city
b: the TNA
c: the rules
b: the censorship
c: the population policy
b: the contraception policy
c: we were given a concession
b: everyone here was given a concession
c: ‘we need more farmers’
b: ‘more primary producers’
a: they said
c: you can’t police the country like you can the city
a: the boy is our only saving grace
c: our pride
b: our joy.

b: never stepped out of line/no, never once
a: a good man
b: a simple man
a: a fisherman
c: but still, I never took their drugs
b: mindnumbing drugs
c: lulling
lulling/false sense

a: not a headache pill nor a laxative/never trusted them TNA medicos
b: I’m an simple man
a: a fisherman
b: an old man
a: things were different back then
b: they should never of changed them
c: the boy never did either, never took the medicine, no puffer for his asthma, no antibiotics for his gastro, we toughed it, didn’t we boy?
a: yeah, like men
c: not like mum hey?
b: how will you feed us?/what are they paying you down there?/are they paying you?/no more fresh fish?/how dare they make you work underground/how dare they/underground/in the Earth’s bowel/so clammy cold/so dark and far away/how will you feed us?
c: [yelling] How’ll I buy your damn pills do you mean?
a: dad
c: Sorry/sorry I raised my voice/sorry love
b: I just worry
c: I’m not going underground
b: then what will you do?/will they let you?/won’t they make you go?
c: I’ve been made an offer
b: an offer?
c: a man in a coat on the pier
b: a stranger?
c: all I have to do is take this sack to a certain latitude and a boat will be waiting to pick it up
[the sack is dirty - stained with what might be blood]
b: It sounds dangerous
c: They’ll pay us a pension for the rest of our lives
b: they’re from the TNA?
c: they’re from police…I think
b: and what if you never return?
c: I’ll return
b: what if you never return?/what about the boy?/what about us?
c: then they’ll pay you a pension/they have your details
b: he never returned
a: dad never returned
b: we never spoke to him again
a: except here
b: as figments/as his imagination
a: ghosts in this infernal machine
b: aren’t we all reduced to a ghost in the end?

[Mitnick slumps in the corner]

a: these are my memories/the woman/the boy/the boat
b: a woman speaking French/a figure in white/bright lights/an airflight/an a aquarium/a shark/an octopus/a beaker and a vile on the bench at head level/a thousand pinpricks of pain/then an infinite, senseless plateau…
a: …I think that’s my memory too…they might be my memories…I’ve got to capture what’s mine/pin them down/like when you scramble across the deck struggling against a wicked wind to pull in the sails before they’re torn off and snatched away…

[Mitnick upends the sack and six brains spill out across the floor]

c: …gung-ho young soldiers/bearded guerrillas/charred corpses/men and buffalo in rice paddies/women at looms/fat men and fat cigars/screens with numbers/graphs, pie charts/ babies disfigured by fist and machete, by scalpel, by nuclear fission and tidal wave…

a: …these aren’t my memories…I don’t trust any of it…

b: …a visit in a white cabin/he poured sugary water into my mouth/he said something about dolphins/he placed a hand on my forehead and smiled/you know you’re just a prawn he said/I smiled too/I was thinking about my wife cooking prawns/about her curled up in bed like a prawn/about the baby boy curled up like a prawn/we both smiled

Hey Lachlan - you inspired me to add a wysiwig editor. You can copy and paste your word documents formating using the 'Paste from Word' function in the toolbar (press 'Open rich editor' above the 'post comment' textarea) - then look for the blue word icon in front of a clipboard.

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