The Resignation Of The Already Marked

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Art gallery window, Redfern.


His cattle didn’t get a bid; they were fairly bloody poor,
What was he going to do? He couldn’t feed them anymore,
The dams were all but dry; hay was thirteen bucks a bale,
Last month’s talk of rain was just a fairytale.


His credit had run out, no chance to pay what’s owed,
Bad thoughts ran through his head as he drove down Gully Road,
‘Geez, great grandad bought the place back in 1898,
Now I’m such a useless bastard, I’ll have to shut the gate.


“Can’t support my wife and kids, not like dad and those before,
Crikey, Grandma kept it going while Pop fought in the war.”
With depression now his master, he abandoned what was right,
There’s no place in life for failures, he’d end it all tonight.


There were still some things to do; he’d have to shoot the cattle first,
Of all the jobs he’d ever done, that would be the worst.
He’d have a shower, watch the news, then they’d all sit down for tea
Read his kids a bedtime story, watch some more TV,
Kiss his wife goodnight, say he was off to shoot some roos
Then in a paddock far away he’d blow away the blues.
But he drove in the gate and stopped – as he always had
To check the roadside mailbox – and found a letter from his dad.


Now his dad was not a writer, mum did all the cards and mail
But he knew the writing from the notebooks that he used at cattle sales.
He sensed the nature of its contents, felt moisture in his eyes,
Just the fact his dad had written was enough to make him cry.


“Son, I know it’s bloody tough; it’s a cruel and twisted game,
this life upon the land when you’re screaming out for rain,
there’s no candle in the darkness, not a single speck of light,
but don’t let the demon get you, you have to do what’s right
I don’t know what’s in your head but push the bad thoughts well away
See you’ll always have your family at the back end of the day
You have to talk to someone, and yes I know I rarely did
But you have to think about Fiona and think about the kids”
Rain from Nowhere
By Murray Hartin

In the mystery, in the nowhere times, moments when he gathered thought and dreamed of a greater life, of triumph and fascination and glittering friends, a gleaming car and a gleaming success story; but in his own quiet resignation the march was all there was. He was warmed by thoughts of a better time; he welcomed darkness; but resignation really was the mode. He didn't know how long it would last. He just kept going, the proverbial one foot in front of another, through echoing rooms, through the giant grey rooms. It was the resignation of the already marked for slaughter.

And then one day the implant began to work again, no warning, no slow onset, no discussions with any figures in authority, it just started working. He noticed it first when he was getting ready for work one morning about two months after he had returned; there was an incident on TV involving a group of riotous footballers on the north coast; with the commentator adopting a morally superior tut tutting tone towards the players and the fans. He realised he could play the report in full in his head, see what had been edited out, dial up the police reports.

He could see from the footage of one of the CTV cameras the incident that caused the whole shenanigans; which had led to the original fracas. He couldn't have cared less about a bunch of football players and their fans on the north coast, yet suddenly he knew more than he could possibly know. He turned it inward, and much to his shock could read his own records, as clear as a bell. There it all was, the hospital, the isolation, tracking back to his capture, the crowd, the guards talking into their sleeves. He could see the list of medication he had been on; he could understand now why they had let him go; it was all a trial.

He could even see the footage they had downloaded from his head, replay it frame by frame. They hadn't bothered to erase it after they had taken it. He could see the face he had recognised in the crowd, the connections that had rifled through his brain, the smoke still curling from the top of the damaged building. Once fully loaded it was easy to replay. He could even track what had happened to the man he had recognised from remote suburban meetings more than a decade before. They had tracked him down, with some difficulty, he had been very secretive; but there were no true secrets, not in this era.

He could see the name of the high security detention centre the man, Alfred Moss, now resided in. The security was high. There was no way he would ever get out of there. He could even see him sitting on his bed in his cell, forlorn, trapped, going nowhere, full of regret not at his deed but at having been caught, dreaming of escape to the bush. As someone who held sympathy for the lost, the trapped, the misfits, who could understand noble but pointless causes, he was shocked at his role in the man's capture.

He had meant him no harm; had not been looking for him when he spied him; the cascade of images that had pinned his guilt had been entirely involuntary. Those meetings that he had been party to, far-off, even that had been good intentioned. The world was closing in, they had all known it. There was a lot of concern then about the implants, demonstrations, worthy articles, talk of a book called 1984 and a totalitarian takeover. Who will run the implants? worthy newspaper columnists asked. Who will own the information?

It all seemed a very long time ago. He was just thankful to once again be awake. Perhaps it had been accidental, the way his implant started up again. But he doubted it. He had been rewarded; not by an individual, but by them. In showing up for work, in not revolting, in quietly going about his duties, he had shown himself worthy. This time, after such a long absence from most of his abilities, he felt different, more worthy, more determined to do good. Perhaps he had been reprogrammed, there was some evidence of that from his own records, but now he didn't care.

Please don't leave me alone again, he whispered. I will be good, I will do as you ask. I have become as nothing, I am nothing without you. Whatever sort of human being I was before, I don't want to go back. I am willing to serve. He could feel the gratitude of the network seeping through his veins. He was saying all the right things, he was being accepted back. He could sense the others on the network, busy with their own tasks. They didn't seem to disapprove of what had happened to him, or what he had done. He couldn't have helped seeing a person he recognised from long ago; Aflred Moss, who would have thought. It was going to be a great day - liberated - from - the - past.



Art gallery window, Redfern.


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/things-can-only-get-better-howard-tells-party/2008/04/14/1208025099007.html

JOHN HOWARD told the Liberal Party it needed to keep a sense of historical perspective about its current woes, out of office federally and in every state and territory.

The former prime minister used his first Australian speech since he lost government and his seat to tell a gathering of Queensland Liberal faithful in Brisbane last night that the dark days of opposition would pass.

"It's very, very important at this moment in Australian history that we keep a sense of history about the Liberal Party of Australia," he said. "This party has been the government of Australia for 42 out of the 64 years that it has been in existence. It's a party of enormous depth, and resilience and it has a great future."

He used the Liberals' tumultuous years of the early 1990s for inspiration. "Just as we came through the difficult years long ago, we'll come through these difficult years again."

Mr Howard was introduced by the most powerful Liberal now in office, Brisbane's Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman, who, after screening some of the Liberal ads used during the last campaign, bemoaned the rewriting of history he said was now under way in Canberra.

Mr Howard added to the historic revisionism theme by telling his audience all the big reform milestones in Australian history had happened under Liberal governments, but he acknowledged things were tough.

"Being in opposition is very difficult. Brendan [Nelson] does have a very difficult job in opposition because in the early days of any government there's a political honeymoon," he said, and the Opposition had to balance the need to adjust to the new reality against its willingness to defend the legacy of the previous government.

"I will do everything I can, in a quiet way, to help you," he said, in an apparent dig at the former prime minister Paul Keating.

"I think former prime ministers should give quiet assistance. People were very fair to me when I was there; well, most of them."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/annabel-crabb/annabel-crabb/2008/04/14/1208025089195.html

Flying in the face of furry yoghurt

Annabel Crabb
April 15, 2008

WHO takes the workaholic award this week - Kevin Rudd or Cate Blanchett?

In the field of competitive international multitasking, this is a grudge match of Alien Versus Predator proportions. The actress is showing up to the 2020 Summit on Saturday even though she has just given birth to her third child.

Mr Rudd is still pinging around in the hyperactivity stratosphere after three weeks of intensive international diplomacy, which seem to have left him completely unblunted by jet lag of any kind.

What does the ordinary person do, upon arriving home from a demanding three-week work trip? Call in sick for a few days. Watch telly. Nervously avoid the reeking, yet-to-be-unpacked suitcase and the fridge full of furry yoghurt.

Not our PM, who had barely shimmied out of his in-flight pyjamas on Sunday before he was addressing a group of Australian youth and announcing the nation's first female Governor-General. Yesterday, he nipped to Sydney to harvest ideas from the Jewish community. They are unable to attend this weekend's summit due to a pre-existing commitment, Passover, which, in their defence, had been in the diary for about 3000 years.

And today, Mr Rudd will proceed to Penrith for community cabinet and its now-customary speed-dating side event, where ministers and members of the public enjoy 10-minute interludes full of bracing policy debate, at the end of which they are at liberty to exchange phone numbers.

A hard-working prime minister is the kind of prime minister you want, it is generally agreed.

But this whirl of activity is starting to look a tiny bit obsessive-compulsive. Kevin Rudd never just phones anything in. Take the world trip, for example. Not only did he visit as many countries and leaders as he could pack in, but he devised a special shtick for each stop.

In the US it was frank talk about Iraq and that we now want a seat on the United Nations Security Council. In Bucharest it was a reproach for European countries for failing to do more in Afghanistan. In Britain it was the slight waft of a republic. In China, of course, it was Tibet, and the Prime Minister's last act before flying home was to deliver a mild slap to Pakistan for taking its eye off the ball, Taliban-wise. (Poor old Pakistan. How do you explain to the world's greatest multitasker you have had a few things on recently?)


An art gallery window, Redfern.