Moon over Redfern.
"Almost no professional believed the new strategy was anything more than a face-saving device, designed to provide a buffer period during which Bush could blame Iraqis for the manifest failure of his grand project. Bush himself admitted that it would cost some American lives, and the lives of who knows how many more Iraqis, but he was still unable to offer a coherent justification for the huge and growing sacrifice, for his apparent demand for yet more victims to join the multitudes already dead."
Mungo MacCallum, Poll Dancing.
The cruelties layered themselves over each other. Nothing could stop him. The days passed in a hazy dream. Part of it was comfort, he didn't have to be anywhere, he didn't have to do anything. He couldn't make a fool of himself, because he was interacting with nobody. The other residents, or inmates, almost never spoke. Even when they did talk, it was never to him. The television droned in the corner; even more boring in this era than it had been in the past. Nobody could believe how unmonitored it had once been, how much social chaos it had caused.
Finally, weeks, it could have been months later, he did exactly what he was sure he had seen on that very same television, or was it at a movie? He stopped taking the medication the nurse brought around each day; two hefty tablets three times a day. That and one injection in the thigh each evening. Roll over. How he missed the nice nurse. The ever changing faces of the staff had only one thing in common: they never showed the slightest sympathy.
For a professional empath it was hard to bear. The isolation was what caught him the most; tortured might be a better word. He had never felt so totally alone, so totally without family, friends, support. He knew he had made mistakes, lots of mistakes, otherwise he wouldn't be there. But what exactly those mistakes had been, he could no longer remember. It was three days after he stopped taking the tablets, doing the old trick of keeping them in the back of his mouth and then spitting them into the sink, that reality came thudding in.
All the colours were hyper-real, he could hear every sound and every movement within a hundred metre radius, the walls were opaque and glowing, the shouts of a new inmate cut right through him. Nobody noticed, the nurses paid him no heed, barely staying 60 seconds after he took the pills before disappearing on their busy rounds. Either he was of no account, or they had forgotten him. One day, four days after he had stopped the pills, he walked to the door of the main play area, where inmates sat staring blankly on couches and the television droned endlessly in the corner.
He stared out at a wide green lawn, unobstructed by statues, by anything at all. There was no apparent security. About 250 metres from the hospital, the forest began, just as he had dreamed. It was dark, malignant, malevolent, if he thought about it. He looked around to see if anyone was watching. A nurse looked rapidly away, pretending not to have noticed. None of it made sense, why weren't they trying to pin him down?
The next day, five days after he began spitting out the pills, he didn't just walk to the door, he walked through it and out on to the lawn, startled by the sudden open space, and then just kept on walking. He waited for the dogs, the shouts of security guards, perhaps even a rifle shot. Nothing happened. He just kept walking, one foot in front of the other, the sky swirling above him, the forest in all its darkness and mystery, growing closer. He began to walk faster. Perhaps, just perhaps, he might actually make it.
Make it he did. Within a few minutes he had covered the distance across the featureless lawn and was entering the pine forest. He could feel the pine needles beneath his feet. The trees looming over head. He waited for someone to follow him and no one did. He didn't know what to do but go home; back to his little house in the city's inner suburbs, back to his old life. He didn't have anyone to return to. He didn't have parents that he could remember. His children, he knew, were flown and grown, but he couldn't remember where they had gone; whether they mattered anymore. He just kept on walking.
Finally, like a dog travelling hundreds of miles to return to its owner, he found himself back at the house where he had lived for years. He let himself in to the silent rooms. He thought he could detect signs that it had been searched, nothing seemed to quite belong where it was, but otherwise it was exactly as he had left it, right down to the unwashed dishes in the sink, the stale smell of the old pipes, the dust piling in the corners, the children's rooms, still with their toys and obsessions exactly as he had left them. He opened the window, got out the broom, did the dishes, zoomed the vacuum cleaner through every room. He thought he should say hello to his neighbours, but for the life of him couldn't remember their faces. The oddest thing of all, after first having to break in through a back window only he knew; his phone, his keys, his wallet all sat on the lounge room table; as if he had never been away.
Moon over Redfern.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23530890-662,00.html
A DEFIANT Brendan Nelson insisted yesterday he was staying put as leading Liberals called on him to stand down immediately as Federal Opposition Leader.
Dr Nelson used the Victorian Liberal State Council as a stage to declare his commitment to the party's top job.
With speculation mounting he could soon be dumped as leader in favour of Treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull, Dr Nelson said he had no intention of stepping aside.
Who should lead the Liberal Party, Brendan Nelson or Malcolm Turnbull? Vote below, right.
"I am very determined and I will keep fighting and standing up for everyday Australians," he said.
"I assure you, I'm going nowhere."
Mr Turnbull was a notable absentee from the party conference.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/nelson-wont-surrender/2008/04/12/1207856908561.html
BRENDAN NELSON vowed yesterday to press on as Liberal leader, even though many colleagues do not believe he will lead them into the next election.
In a clear indication that panic is emerging in some Liberal quarters, a few MPs are clinging to the idea that former treasurer Peter Costello could be drafted into the job.
Only one of a dozen Liberal MPs contacted yesterday believed firmly that Dr Nelson would be Opposition Leader at the 2010 poll.
Those contacted were from the support camps of Dr Nelson and leader-in-waiting, Malcolm Turnbull.
But despite deep pessimism about whether Dr Nelson could tough it out, most said they were willing to give him a chance to prove himself.
Most disputed weekend reports that Dr Nelson may be out of the job within months. As one MP said: "Basically, there is nothing happening. Irrespective of how people voted, people want to give him a go."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/beijing2008/to-beijing-or-not/2008/04/12/1207856907941.html
A MAJORITY of Australians believe Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should go to the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, an exclusive poll has found.
But one-third want him to snub the Games in protest at China's human rights record in Tibet. A quarter believe the Australian Olympic team should also stay away.
With the Olympic torch relay to be run in Canberra in 11 days, pressure is mounting on Mr Rudd to join world leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in snubbing August's opening ceremony.
The Taverner Research poll for The Sun-Herald found 33percent of Australians believe Mr Rudd should stay away. Fifty-threepercent believe Mr Rudd should attend, with 14percent unsure.
One-quarter of respondents said our athletes should boycott the Games while 68percent want them to compete and 7percent were unsure.
Sixty-twopercent of those surveyed wanted the Government to issue a stronger, formal condemnation of China over Tibet.
The Prime Minister yesterday dismissed calls for a boycott.
Mural, Redfern.
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