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Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The ice clutched in my little fingers melts too quickly, just as it soon as it begins to help sooth the burning, it cruelly liquifies and slides carelessly to the aged mattress, making a crude tainted puddle.
It’s school holidays in 1996, a bright sunny day in the middle of nowhere, known to us as the shack. My sibling and I are carefree, singing our favourite song ‘Ironic’ by Alanis Morissette and taking turns swinging back and forth as high as we could on the big swing near the dark farm shed.
The swing itself was just a makeshift white hollow electrical pole with coarse industrial wire through the centre, peppered with pellet gun holes which left exposed scratchy exit wounds and the wire so rough it shaved away at our hands turning them into calloused blisters.
It hung blissfully high on cabling wire strung taut between two giant and ancient leafy gumtrees. As I swang I caught glimpses of the slow moving Murray River and it’s muddy banks between the trees. I could feel the warm breeze swirling my mousey coloured hair behind my face then in front as I went back and forth, back and forth. Breathing deep into my lungs, I bravely conquered the thrilling height and just for a brief moment, I felt fearless.
I could see everything in all directions, I loved playing and feeling alive. I would lean back as far as I could, knees gripping, arms fully extended, only my the tips of my fingertips responsible for holding me on. I would let the blood rush to my head, smile upside down to my sibling and giggle a heart warming child’s laugh. Then I would pull myself up, clutch tighter onto the cable with my eyes closed until my stomach stopped flipping. I was so happy.
Then he took me.
There was a small handful of church boys that came along, my cousins too. Tall and old enough to ride the two motor bikes and tractors that were littered in the shed, they were keen to ride them across the vast tree-scattered and brittle farm land that ran parallel to the Murray river. One church boy kindly offered to put me on the front of his motorbike so I could go along. My sibling refused to join, an earlier accident of being impaled in their foot by a stick at rapid speed, had left them a little shell shocked.
I am swiftly lifted on the front of the motorbike, a small framed 8 year old, shoe-less and in threadbare floral shorts and a tee. We passed through the wire fencing into the farming wasteland, gradually in the distance I saw a lamb and it’s mother. I looked on in horror. The mother was using her very last burst of energy to run but she wasn’t moving any where, she was deeply tangled in the sharp barbed wire fence, blood oozing into her once creamy fleece. Excruciatingly weak from struggling against the hopelessness, finally she slumped heavily, leaving nothing but limp limbs at awkward angles and pleading eyes. Moments later I saw my father standing over her, cutting her down and dragging her roughly and heaping her half alive onto the ute tray.
All I smell is burning, all I see is blackness. I am cramped in a sitting position in the cot I still have to sleep in when we come here, my fingers are frozen from the ice, the mattress soggy and cool beneath me. The deep burns on my soft thighs look angry and inflamed. My warm tears make them sting. I fold myself up, sitting quietly in disbelief, emptiness and pain. I make sure I am not heard.
The motorbike roars on after passing the sight of the sheep. Sitting on the edge of the seat, I reach out and hold onto the handbars, making sure not to touch or twist the throttle. My arms ache quickly having to hold them up high, the engines tanks heat, licks at my knees.
Deeper into the treeline the church boy behind me moves too close, sending a cold dread through me. Slowly he pushes against me, pulsating and grinding himself into my tailbone and bottom. I slide my frame higher and higher up to sit on the engine. Relentlessly he keeps going, humping shamelessly like a degraded animal. I stay gripped to the searing hot tank with my bare legs and feet, my backbone starting to feel bruised from his pathetic act. My nerve endings firework into an extreme panic as the bike slows down near low scrub.
I seek for help within the blur of the trees, I search myself for where can I run.
I wake up coughing like I always do, I think I must have cried myself to sleep in the cot. I uncurl my legs, regreting it instantly, my burnt skin is stretched tight and weeping. Swallowing back down bitter stomach bile from the pain, I steady myself and tenderly cover my legs.
The pungent smell of strange campfire smoke confuses me. I tiptoe down past the swing, I cringe at it and vow never to feel happy again. Everyone is down by the waters edge, there are now jerry cans laying across the muddy banks. A rough fire pit is burning with a sheep sized matted lump inside, they are all watching it burn. My father is smiling and smells like kerosene.
I find my sibling alone, I sit quietly at the bottom of the gumtree next to them. I stare up through the beautiful deep green of the leaves. Slowly I notice how the cables from the swing cut deep into the trees flesh and how the rusty cable is slackening from old age. The burning sheep's death assaults my nostrils and I feel as lost as the lamb.
For a long time, everything inside me hurts.
Until I write.