mangrove creek

The day is dark. Rains been falling for five or six. Straight. No let up. Ground's been choking up frogs looking to come in to the dry. Home ain't much. Boards and iron. Covering of something keeping the wind out. Small wood stove in back. Chimney's been drawin' well since I rammed clay in the wattle frame. Chinaman showed me that. He's been living down here a long time. Name's Chan. Little fella. Grows his own. Spuds and green. Little smokin' stuff. Says it keeps out the yearning. Frogs ain't worth eating. More like little hoppidy friends. Chan reckons on them making for a stew but he don't eat meat. I says they ain't meat, they'd be more like little boiled taters. We don't try 'em though. Everything's got to live beside one another in harmonious relationships.

It's hard to be positive on days that run one into the other with the continuous dark kinda eating away at the sunny edges of your usual disposition. Chan and me got to thinking we should take matters into our own hands and swim out. Being stuck over on our side of the creek and all. Chan can swim. He dives most days for eels. Catches them and smokes 'em. River chicken he says. Not meat, fish. He knows about things. Sometimes when he's talking I drift off. He says it's just me swimming out to the stars. Says them's my natural home. Can't say I know what he's on about. I don't like swimming.

I never did reckon on the water. Don't like it. Face washin's okay by me, but can't say as I take it much past. Don't smell. Chan says I'm one of those natural men. Says I'm related to the trees and sky. Says the day I was born the comet Xenchichie came close to the earth and showered me in crystal silver. says it keeps me clean, kills all the bacteria. Says I'm the chosen one. Chan's been here for more than two thousand years. He says, he's been waiting on me. And that's what he does now. He's like my shadow, fillin' in the holes of my comings and goings.

Me coming upon this place was, according to Chan, no accident. It was an accident by my reckoning. Most things is accidents, small ruptures in the fabric of circumstance that has you fallin' from one hole to another. Like walking across a muddy paddock. Me and Chan, we've done that kind of walking together where he's a jumping from one spot to the other and cryin' out for me to follow in his footsteps, yelling all the while about how the dark bats of hell could be released if we don't follow the path of least resistance. Chan ain't right in the head. But any man in my position would be a churlish and ungrateful neighbour if he didn't at least try to accomodate him. Chan would carry me on his back if I'd let him. For a two thousand year old he's a tough little bugger.

Chan said the water was okay to be swimmin' across. Not going too swift. I reckoned on it bein' some fifteen feet above it's normal and there was not a small amount of tree stuff floating down in there. Not so much floating either. It was pushing by, branches stickin' up like deer antlers, dozens of them. I reckoned on it bein' a fair tangle below as well. Chan wasn't havin' any of it. You sick, he said, you die if you don't get help. I reckoned on us both bein' speared and drownin' to death beneath a swirlin' mass of giant claws. Chan said that would happen when all the suns went cold and black spiders spun webs across the universe and pulled everything together to keep it from dying alone.

Technically Chan was right about the about me bein' sick. I guessed I was feelin' more poorly than ever I'd been before. I was bleeding from most every where it seemed to me. Reckon I'd ate one dead possum too many. They'd been poisonin' them with 245T or some such. Droppin' bait on 'em to stop they's destruction of just about everything. Now I ain't really a possum eatin' man but them dyin' around me seemed to be a waste. That ain't entirely true. My dog ate them first. Before I was aware. Was eating baits too I guess. There's been tons of 'em dropped. Been killin' birds, fish, most of anything that ate 'em. Possums too. Collateral damage. Read that one. Seems that's okay, gets the target, takes out the surrounding innocent. Seems to me like it's being judged guilty by association of place. Makes my dog guilty. Found him bled out. Died alone. He'd spent most of his days with me. By my side. Sleepin' on my feet in summer, up beside me in winter.

Days have been black since. Reckon on me wanting to go the same way as the dog. Life ain't worth the worry if your best friend has died alone. I'm to get where he's going. Told Chan. He wasn't havin' too much of it. Said the dog was a living part of me and I had no right to let him go on account of me being not strong enough to carry the load. Chan must of dragged us across that creek. Don't rightly know how.

Folks found me wandering up on  Black Tar Road. Said I was bent double like I was carrying a heavy weight. Said I was talking to a fella called Chan, tellin' him I was covered in heavens crystals so I'd be alright. Said I had nothing on except a tarpaulin wrapped around me, blue on one side, silver on the other.

Back living at Mangrove Creek. Dog walked right in on me one day. Sat down at my feet. Chan says the universe is all pulling in to one. Stars still look bright to me, so I reckon he's talking about us fallin' into the same hole time and again. Winter's comin'. Dog will be sleeping up beside me. Chan's smokin' one of his eels. Seems to me if things are replacing in a natural way we should be able to keep our heads above water for some time.