Equal runner up – Senior section
Scotch Oakburn College
A Distinguished Conduct Medal is the only difference between me and an Australian white Ibis. We both live without a home, without a job, shunned by society for even existing. We both rummage through the waste of others in an effort to stay alive. Day after day the Ibis and I roam the streets of Sydney, searching for a handout. Often, the Ibis is more fortunate than I am; no one wants to come near a grizzled homeless man. At least the Ibis has a family, comrades, mates; at least there are others in its life who are the same as it.
They say that acceptance, friendship, love, and compassion are all qualities of the Australian identity. I try to believe that people embody those characteristics but it becomes difficult when you are cornered in an alleyway in the dead of night by three men who have chased you down from where you were sleeping and are now advancing with pipes and crowbars, demanding you hand over what little valuables you have. All three are wearing bandannas. Only their eyes are visible, as I gaze back into their shining orbs-
*BANG*
The man on the left hits his pipe into the wall with a deafening crack. My vision flashes with tableaus of a desert landscape, hellfire raining upon my encampment, and my knees give out. These were the three young men I had sworn at earlier today for trying to steal my hat, which held the meagre fare I had earned while begging. Consequently, I was forced to re-locate from Hyde Park, by a security guard.
*thud, thud*
*BANG*
My attackers’ heavy boots approach me, and the one on the left cracks his pipe against the alley wall yet again. Once more, as I am crouched on the ground in fear and weakness; I see the adjacent APC1 to mine go up in flames; the shouted orders from my lieutenant and the screams of the wounded fill my ears.
On the 11th April 2003, I was involved in the seizure of the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq. We had neutralised what little opposition the hostile troops made at the base as well as started work on cataloguing the munitions. My group of boys, along with another, were tasked with transporting assets from our previous camp to the air base, where we would spend the foreseeable future. We were on our way back to camp when the other APC hit an Iraqi anti-vehicle land mine, killing two of my closest friends and wounding four other soldiers. My mob spent the remainder of that night and half of the next day picking through the rubble, and piecing together our mates…
My head stops spinning and I look up into the eyes of the central assailant, now closer than before. I clutch my worn backpack to my chest, the backpack which has been with me for 26 months of homelessness and holds all my worldly possessions, other than my pillow, mattress and thin blanket. I’d had the wherewithal to snatch up my pack before making a run for it from the three men when they had approached me in the corner I was sleeping in that night. This was the pack that I had taken with me to try to claim my DVA pension, and the one into which I had angrily stuffed my rejection papers when I was told that I was ineligible for compensation for my service. This was the pack which has held my winnings at the RSL pokies, as well as known the absence of my losses; the backpack which has held countless cigarette packs and felt the weight of multiple bottles of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. The very same backpack which now holds nothing except an expired driver’s licence, $32.40 in coins, a mushy apple and my DCM .
26 months is a long time without exercise and proper nutrition. Layer that with substance abuse and you get a frail body, devoid of energy or the fire to fight. Frail enough to have two ribs crack when the first kick lands solid on my torso. I collapse onto my side, tears streaming from my eyes and my mouth forming soundless pleas for help. I see a steel capped boot rush towards my face-
° ° ° The grimy pavement beneath me fills my vision as I re-emerge to the surface of consciousness. Sharp pain accompanies every movement I make, and breathing is agony. I eventually manage to sit myself upright and gather my bearings. It’s still dark, and there is no sign of the three men, or my backpack. My backpack, my money… my medal. Gone. I now have nothing except the clothes on my back. Tears of despair run down my face as I sit, hunched over, painfully gasping for air between breaths. The one thing which I held closest to my heart, the one thing that allowed me to feel some kind of identity, pride, or purpose in my existence was my DCM, and it’s gone. I didn’t have the constitution or the resilience to save even that piece of me. I had hunched over and whimpered like a dog. I’d failed.
After a period of time which seems shameful, I recover from my fit of hopelessness, using techniques taught during my training. The feeling that fills me now isn’t happiness however, it’s the absence of emotion. There is a void inside me that feels empty and numb. My fingers tingle slightly with something that isn’t quite energy. The pain of my ribs and my bleeding nose feel almost as if they are injuries inflicted on someone else. I rise to my feet and walk out onto the street, and into the bright pools of light cast by streetlamps. My mind wanders back to the very beginning as my feet carry me to a destination of which I’m unaware. I recall the smell of alcohol on the breath of my father, cigarette smoke in the morning sunlight streaming through the blinds. The screamed arguments between my parents and the crashing sounds of lamps and dressers being knocked to the floor… The sounds of people falling out of love… My zombie-like wandering has led me to Hyde Park and standing proud, like a raised, giant middle finger to me and lit up by dazzling white lights, is the ANZAC Memorial. Bile rises in my throat and I avert my eyes as memories come breaking through my walls of waking up each morning, with fewer mates in your tent.
Step after step I take, shambling numbly through the troughs of a crystalline city, a city of skyscraper buildings filled with white collar workers who have never struggled a day in their lives. My feet are taking me north, towards the harbour, and I make no effort to resist. I note, not for the first time, that the subtle rumbling of trains underground is not dissimilar to that of a distant explosion, shaking the ground beneath you ever so slightly; shaking your sanity ever so slightly. Each step brings me ever so slightly closer to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the iron monstrosity of human engineering looming above me in the dark. Step after step, I begin to register somewhere in my mind that I can hear the faint sounds of waves slapping against the concrete pillars of the bridge. It is a wild night and blades of chilly wind cut at the gaps in my clothes. I begin to shiver, a sensation worsened by the icy cold metal of the harbour bridge on my bare hands. I clamber over a fence with the ease of obstacle course training, albeit much less gracefully on account of injured ribs.
The bridge supports seem no thicker than matchsticks from a distance, but when you’re trudging your way up them, clutching the fence railing as you go, they are easily big enough to fit four people abreast with room to spare. The wind whips at my matted hair, obscuring my vision but this barely registers as I continue shaking, my mind completely blank, save the consuming despair which grips and claws at my soul. Like a pack of starved hounds feasting on their first meal for a week, so too does the sadness devour any lingering sense of joy I may have once felt. With every step I take towards the summit I feel emptier and emptier inside, until I reach the highest and centremost point of the bridge. I clamber with numb, icy hands over the guard railing, facing into the moonlight abyss, zephyrs of wind threatening to knock me off balance. My body exists now simply as a vessel for a broken soul.
Who knew that the city lights of Sydney could look so beautiful, tumbling through the air?
. . .
1 Armoured Personnel Carrier
2 Department of Veterans’ Affairs
3 Returned Serviceman’s League
4 Distinguished Conduct Medal
Forty South Publishing and the Tasmanian Association for the Teaching of English (TATE) congratulate everyone who entered our short story competition in this challenging coronavirus-affected year. We would also like to recognise the extra work put in by teachers and parents to support these young writers and to maintain the general education of young Tasmanian school students.
The themes this year echoed the world-wide pandemic. For the Juniors (Years 7-9) the themes were ‘Connection’ or ‘Community’ and for the Seniors (Years 10-12) they were ‘Isolation’ or ‘Island’. Students were free to interpret their chosen theme in any way they wanted.
Chris Gallagher judged both sections and was impressed with the overall standard of entries. She could not split her two top stories in the Senior Section and so the senior prize has been shared by Tabitha Glanville (Scotch Oakburn College) and Tara Sharman (Hobart College). In a first for Clarence High School, Oenone Schofield took out the Junior Section with her story, ‘Home’.
