Ziji: August 2018

The Dream Life Of Debris - A Journey From Trauma To Healing

‘everything will flourish at the edge’

—Jacques Derrida, La verite en peinture (1978)

Twelve-year-old Paul loves to walk the train tracks of suburban Adelaide. One day as he’s walking with his faithful Jack Russell, he witnesses something he doesn’t understand. He buries the memory deep in his subconscious, choosing instead to dwell on dreams.As an adult, his memory comes rushing back and Paul has to confront the demons of his past, as he relives memories of how the principal of his school took special care of him, loving him in a way that his distant father never had. But that love turned out to be far more sinister.Can Paul reveal these memories to the investigative team? Can he expose his wounds to his wife and fix their marriage? Will remembering the secrets heal him?

Extract

Chapter 1

September 1982—Paul (aged 12) sees a hanging

On hot days Paul took Barry for long, cool walks up the Australian interstate line from the suburb of Church where he lived to Blackstone, about two kilometres away. The gum trees lining the edges of the rail corridor were filled with magpies and currawongs fighting over territories. In the shrubs beneath the canopy, foreigners like sparrows and Indian minor birds fought it out with tiny fire tails and butcherbirds. It seemed the migrants did as well as Paul did in surviving their new homes in totally different climates. They all had a sense that the world provided everything they needed. They seemed not to look back or forward but just to be in the now.

On those days when he knew his father, Charles, would be late home, Paul would hang out on the railway lines until nightfall. He didn’t need a torch or a leash. Barry the Jack Russel led the way. These were the backstreets of their home, where the only gangs were of birds and the occasional fox that would rumble their territories. The three tunnels between Church and Blackstone could take a long time to walk, as both boy and dog turned over the chuck-outs from trains.

Once, Paul found a watch, not with a globe engraved on its back like the flat steel one Charles had bought from a pawn shop, but a gold one with an inscription ‘Rosetangle 1915’. Its glass face was cracked. Further up the track he found a leather satchel with letters embossed with the owner’s address in Adelaide. Mostly he found boxes of matches, books, key chains, coins and notes, pens and rubber sheaths filled with glue, which he later understood to be partly desiccated semen.

Sometimes he found dolls and teddy bears, likely thrown out in a fight between siblings. They lay close together discarded like unwanted children from unrelated families, as if they had found homes in each other’s arms. Occasionally, Barry would find sandwich ends, biscuits and lunch wraps with mayonnaise or mouldy tomato sauce remains or a cat hunting inside the tunnel. That would bring on a furious chase. Sometimes the interstate roared through the tunnel at the same time. Paul would close his eyes, block his ears with his hands and hold Barry awkwardly between his elbows, as he pressed against the side of the tunnel.

It was on one of these summery days that Paul reached Blackstone around twilight, and the usual group of men were standing around waiting. No suburban train was ever due at this time of day and the goods train came through long after dark. It wasn’t the first occasion that he had seen them. Sometimes one would be holding a boy by the arm as the group walked toward the stationmaster’s office.

To avoid being seen, Paul had learned to approach Blackstone station by crawling on all fours via the hillside track made by the wallabies and formed into a low tunnel through the scrub. Barry would dart between his hands and legs and lick his face as he passed underneath, as if at last Paul understood how the world worked.

Paul sensed danger in the groups of men without knowing why. When there was a boy with them, the group would disappear into the office and lights would go on behind the frosted glass, on which the name ‘Blackstone’ was etched in the shape of an arch. He would hear muffled sounds as he sat and waited for them to leave. As night settled, lights would come on in the washroom behind the office. Paul could see the men and the boy moving around the basins and toilets. There was a mirror against one of the walls and from his view above the station he could see a procession of the backs of heads and occasionally a side of face. Mostly the men combed their hair and adjusted their clothing. Rarely would he see the boy adjusting his.

You can purchase my novel from these sources:

Kindle: https://www.amazon.com.au/Dream-Life-Debris-Journey-Healing-ebook/dp/B077M681W4

Apple: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/au/book/the-dream-life-of-debris/id1315493734?mt=11

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/au/en/ebook/the-dream-life-of-debris

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=mlU_DwAAQBAJ

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Ziji

Sunday, August 12

Art poetry 3

Sunday, August 5

Art poetry 2

Thursday, August 2

Art poetry

Wednesday, August 1

Trauma Fiction

The Dream Life Of Debris - A Journey From Trauma To Healing

Extract

Chapter 1

September 1982—Paul (aged 12) sees a hanging