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By Root 180 0

Quickly the sun dried the blood and brain before the gusting wind swept his life into the sky. And now the man beneath the gum tree moved. He undid a small bag tied by a loop of twine to his waist and spread its contents before him on the ground. He put a narrow stick between his palms and twisted the sharpened end back and forth on to a strip of bark. When it smoked he added dried grass and blew. Tiny flames flickered from the embers. He quickly added larger twigs and dried roots until the fire was large enough to burn a branch end that he could carry like a torch into the darkened church.

After McCreedy had laid out the corpse of the reverend in the bushes beside the creek, he walked back to the side of the church and picked up the shovel. Smoke was already billowing from the glassless windows but he did not stop to investigate. He returned to the body and began digging. The grave site was exactly where it had been in my dream two days before. And then I saw myself clothed and broken, watching McCreedy in the clothes of the reverend, tossing dirt into a mound and digging deeper. My other self was oblivious to my presence.

And just as before, McCreedy lifted the cross from his neck and placed it upon the deceased. Again, the body and the dirt did not make a sound when dropped into the earth.

When McCreedy finished shovelling he turned and headed back towards the burning church. But after a few paces he stopped, patted the chest pocket, and reached in and took out a piece of paper. He unfolded the ticket and held it level with his face. It was in the name of a Reverend Thomas. But he could only presume this. He only knew it was a ticket because printed on it was a picture of a steamer with a puffing funnel, stencilled passengers waving from the open decks. To read the destination he put his fingers to the word and sounded out each letter. ‘A-F-R-I-C-A … Af … Af-ri … Africa.’

In the time he had taken to read aloud his first ever word, flames had tangled themselves in the rafters of the roof, and the wooden cross was burning like a flaring mast. From the belt loop of the frock McCreedy pulled a large hat. He slapped the dirt from the wide brim and placed it upon his head. It was a perfect fit.

In the opening of an eye McCreedy and the reverend have gone, figments of history, of my parched mind. Nelson Babbage and the first page of his journal are my only concrete reality of what has occurred here. And even if I saw nothing more than a fevered dream, I feel the keeper of terrible secrets. Though these might be my own if I don’t make it back to you.

Or am I to suppose fate was a crash in a creek bed to bring me here, to this ruined church and charred journal? A vision in thirst that had me believe all I needed to do for a drink was ask McCreedy for a sip from his canteen?

I’ve been pressing pen to page so hard I have a dent in my finger. My senses are shutting down. Took five minutes to count to ten. Blotches have appeared on my vision, blurred spots like fingers in front of a photo.

The hallucination burned what little energy I had left. I have to put it down to dehydration, a mirage. What am I supposed to make of such a scene, I don’t know? Where are my shimmering lakes? Streams of snowmelt quenching my thirst? That I might die without a final kiss from you should have delivered a vision of desire, not the imagery of murder, a Victorian priest and his convict killer. Did I resurrect a ghost from the pages of the journal?

Again the sun is setting.

But of course it is. I write as though it’ll be my last. Though the truth is that when I woke in the afternoon, my face burned scarlet, my body drying out like a withered chilli, the evening cool was fantasy.

But I’m here. If I sleep now I doubt I’ll ever wake. So I shall take a ladder and lean it upon the stone walls of our cottage, steadying the base as you climb up and nail down the final slate. And when you step off the bottom rung into my arms, together we’ll look up and watch the indigo roof actually glow brighter as the sun goes down.

Although I’m so dehydrated