STEP BY STEP MY DEAREST FRIENDS

On my watch. My dearest friends. The Psychological Operations had stopped. The targeting. The pressurisation. A terrible calm. They sat on couches, under blankets, laughing, these people he had never met. In a thousand ways, we're here to help. 

Old Alex was continuing his journey up the coast. A thousand miles. A hundred million years. What difference did it make, here in the achingly beautiful. 

Nothing stood out as it should be told. The dreams were a miasma. The pressure self-induced. 

Now came the next phase. 

A million years. A thousand soldiers. 

The high rises of Maroochydore  were strung along the horizon of what he had assumed was a fishing village. 

Another sun baked day. A cloudless sky. It had not rained in months.

We would be seeing, soon enough, the way it was. And the way it would be. 


THE BIGGER STORY:

In a bed across the room another anxious parent sits with his little boy. Abu Tahir says the military came to their Maungdaw village in northern Rakhine two weeks ago and set fire to the houses as people ate their evening meal. His family was trying to ease their children through a hole in their fence to escape when soldiers opened fire. His 17-year-old son was killed and his youngest boy, seven-year-old Sufait, shot in the chest. Abu Tahir’s sister was burned alive inside the house.
He scooped up his wounded boy and with the rest of his family headed to the border. “Twice we tried to cross the water but the Burmese navy stopped us from leaving,” Abu Tahir said. “The third time we hired a row boat”.By the time they crossed the Bay of Bengal to the safety of Bangladesh it was a week since Sufait was shot.There are similar stories and injuries throughout this crowded hospital. It is treating four landmine victims, including one woman, Sabequr Nahar, who also lost both legs. Her son said he saw Myanmar soldiers laying more mines from his hiding spot in the hills above the village.In a tent pitched in the hospital grounds a 12-year-old girl is recovering after being shot in the eye by soldiers who fired at villagers as they emerged from houses to ­investigate gunfire. A five-year-old girl has a gunshot wound to the hand. The bullet that wounded her killed her father who was carrying her across the river.
The doctors here say they have seen many patients with large exit wounds at the front of their body, suggesting they were shot from behind as they ran.


Police have charged a 38-year-old man from North Hobart over the alleged headbutt attack on former prime minister Tony Abbott on Thursday.
The man was charged with one count of common assault and was granted conditional bail to appear in the Hobart Magistrates Court on October 23.Mr Abbott sustained what he described as a "very slightly swollen lip" when the man allegedly headbutted the former PM after approaching him for a handshake.
At an earlier press conference, police said the alleged assailant was wearing a "vote yes" badge, in reference to the postal survey on same-sex marriage, but would not involve themselves in speculation about the motivation for the attack.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called for calm and restraint on Friday in the wake of the alleged headbutting, reminding both sides of the same-sex marriage debate that violence will not help their cause.
Meanwhile, an "entirely unscathed" Mr Abbott has used the incident to decry the "brave new world of same-sex marriage" and cement his claim the "yes" side was responsible for the increasing ugliness of the debate.