Clement O'Sheehan

Carla travelled west for days until she hit the ocean in the north of the state. The sea winds and sight of the aquamarine expanse made her feel cleansed. Fumes and chaos of the city with the dust and grit of the outback was balanced out by the endless sea.  The relentless engagement with human beings through work and travel was repaired by aloneness in an off-peak trailer park. 

Capes, peninsulas, bays and beaches. Towering sandstone mountains flattened and ran outstretched then into the ocean. Driving into town she observed a crowd demonstrating against expansionist plans for mining companies.  Indigenous rights for return to country and other societal inequalities called for people to organise themselves in protest. 

Carla drove on back across the ranges and visited a gorge. Walking upon the red earth along a track through the cheeky grass, Carla noticed a crevasse in the immense orange sandstone plateau. The path led steeply downwards, winding around to a sandy shore. Turquoise translucent water rippled athwart, broadside to a zephyr of breeze. Grasses bent.  Further and deeper into the turquoise of a long body of water intertwining sheer mountainous sandstone cliff faces. Carla stepped into the water and was soon floating on her back, gazing up into the firmament.

High noon passed as she found a broad even position for her caravan  not far from the highway. She unhitched and wound down the stabilising legs. The annexe stretched out and was tied down.  She unfolded her camping chair, fetched a beverage and sat down. A vast expanse of limitless country took on a breathtaking descent under a big sky just meters from her feet. Dusk swept the canyon dimming the rustic tones of the earth.  Seven red tailed black cockatoos sailed over the horizon as bands of gold arched across the valley from a setting sun and night fell. 

At dawn, Carla looked over the canyon wondering what to do.  As habit, she petitioned All There Ever Was, Is, and Ever Will Be for courage and stability of temperament. Herself, a cerealogical sceptic with a vague hoping for infinite archangel strength. At a distance from belief in a monotheistic principle of power or the perceived need that she would ever want to know, she hitched her van and headed due south. Faith in nature, patience and time were her three great physicians.

Carla made tracks at 6:30AM with a view to be retired at a roadhouse, camp or trailer park and under a tree by 1PM.  She refuelled containers and bought crates of water. She had spare tyres, ropes, tarpaulin, clamps, ockie straps, plastic ties and gaffer tape.  She stopped every couple of hours and progress was slow. Her financial position was that she needn’t work for a while.

Along her travels she observed numerous abandoned vehicles stricken in the vivid red earth beside the highway. Regular reminders to be careful. A ghost town appeared from the rugged rocky outcrop in the distance. As Carla understood it, the relentless and frenzied pursuit for gold and precious metals drove people of the colonies. They flocked and hoarded wealth. When all the known riches were extracted from the earth, people left and the buildings returned to dust. Carla wandered around the remains of a church and cemetery. She saw upon tombstones inscriptions carved with numerous different languages and symbols. 

On the third day as the mercury topped 47C Carla settled into a shady van park and had a long cold shower. Everything needed looking after, including the self. As the grey jumper birds darted hither and thither about her caravan doorway, she poured herself a shandy.  The familiar ‘ker- chew’ repeats of the birds brought affections to Carla. One of the more eccentric voices and conventions of the bush.

By eventide, the park managers had made a substantial camp fire which blazed against the backdrop of a giant setting sun.  Carla hadn’t worked for months and would not have said more than a few dozen words to people in that time. She plucked up some gumption, retrieved the acoustic guitar from under the bed and made her way across.  She sat and stared through the vapour of flames to the blood red disc shimmying its way over the horizon. The twilight in return cast an even bronzed glow over the land as burning chips and slivers of tinder burst into the darkening sky.

Despite the urgings of people her guitar sat in its case behind her until folks settled down to talk about things travellers talk about amongst each other. Then she played.  About a dozen people waited with great anticipation as Carla began her intro in E minor with mournful G major harmonica accompaniment. ‘Dry Land’ and ‘Cool Blue Stole My heart’ by Joan Armatrading led into ‘Running Up That Hill’ and ‘Babooshka’ by Kate Bush. Carla medlied ‘Stand Back’ by Stevie Nicks into ‘Gold’ by John Stewart. ‘Heart of Gold’ by Neil Young, ‘Sugarman” by Rodriguez and ‘Wide Open Road’ by The Triffids followed.  The final song she performed was “Under The Milky Way’ by The Church. Carla’s perfect ten. She placed her guitar back into its case, bade the awe-struck party a good night and departed for her caravan.

Stella and Max had breakfast together. Poached eggs, toast and tea. Max cleaned up and Stella retrieved the books.

She sat at the table attending to inventories, orders and other calculations.

Max stepped to where the front door of an ordinary house would be and stepped straight into the rear of their little shop. He walked around the counter and opened the wide roller door which opened onto the footpath.

Pedestrians ambled by in the early morning ambience, light traffic eased past. He set down the multi-coloured hard plastic streamers which draped across the entrance which kept flies and bugs at bay. Side windows of the shop offered a lovely cross breeze to this summer’s day. Soon Stella joined him, and they were officially open for custom in this their seventh year of business.

Seven years ago, at this time they would be scurrying along pavements having endured an hour-long commute on train and another 40 minutes by bus, only to be strangled inside an office building performing meaningless data entry. Day in day out, year in year out. On their 40th birthdays they invested in a house with an old shop for a front yard. The old shop had served as a double car garage for most of the last 20 years.

They sold homemade soaps, quilling and polymer clay jewellery and fabrics. Trinkets and Tupperware, daily bread and stationery. Papers and sodas. Fold up furniture and knick-knacks. Homemade wooden bowls and coats for small-medium sized dogs.

Their interests had become their business, and business was good.

It is 1978, children are throwing cumbersome mustard coloured lounge cushions around the lounge room. Doilies have been lifted off coffee tables which are knocked sideways.

The floorboards beneath the tight coiling orange carpet buckle momentarily with the thumping. The needle on the record player/television/liquor cabinet combo lifts and skips and scratches across the vinyl record. This causes the parents to start yelling at the children who are screaming in euphoria over the parents.

‘I Will Survive’, the classic Gloria Gaynor song, comes to an abrupt halt.

The last of the Cherry Blossoms washed away in the rain.

People turned their attention to the tulips coming into season and prepared for a long hot Japanese summer.   

Huni farewelled her Cherry Blossom tree for another year. The sky cleared revealing a burnt orange sunset with crimson and violet streaks. Soon night fell. Non distinct city workers marched past rows of neon illuminated vending machines. Little dogs leapt about in doorways with excitement upon the sight of their owners’ approach. 

Jepi made one last delivery from her little van as light rain fell. She hurried home to her mother who was visiting from a countryside precinct. Mother prepared lovely meals for her daughter she missed so much.

Heavy rain fell throughout the night dampening the shrieks of squirrels, bats and cats.

Morning appeared.

Huni opened the sliding doors to a chill morning. The wind picked up the large and long sheer curtains and pushed them against herself. She was beautifully attired in plain clothing, as plain as an overcast day. Straight lines. She lived alone. Being Saturday, she gathered in her basket for groceries and the attached list. 

Afterwards she visited swans in the lake and pondered a dinner lunch before going back home and preparing her meal. She watched movies and listened to music whilst cleaning her apartment. She payed close attention to the back of cupboards, besides utility machines and under the bed. She settled in for the evening and reflected upon her productive day.

She slept in on Sunday and woke as winds were driving rain hard against the closed sliding doors.  Today would be spent in bed, she would not change out of her fluffy night garment. In the evening she made five bento boxes for each workday. She laid out five uniforms for the week. She felt less anxious when she was organised.    

She was a little anxious from time to time. She commuted by train and bus to her workplace. She worked at Tokyo patent office in general affairs. She was interned at age 19 years, now 31.  

Huni was secure and happy enough in herself. If there was more for her ‘out there’, she harboured no desire to pursue it.

He walked along without accompaniment.  A ribbon of beach was narrowing into rocky outcrop against which the cruel sea met. Seaweed mashed under his footsteps as he hopped from tidal pool to pond.  Gusts of mist and ocean spray halted the trajectory of a Petrol overhead finding an ariel pathway to their young nestled in crevices of cliff faces. Predators circled the nearby airspace hoping to feast on vulnerability.

Timing his leaps around the rocks he gripped the entry point of a cave and levered himself inside.  Scaling another platform, he found the spot. He brushed aside loose gravel and dug around for the edges of what he buried long ago. He retrieved a large tin case, stowed it away in a canvas bag and returned to his truck the way he came.

He sat inside the cabin with the tin nestled on his lap. Impassive expression on his face. A quick look confirmed the contents were in situ. The plastic sleeves contained unconditional amounts of cash. He drove south through drenched small towns, torrential rain fell. Residents were building sandbag walls in preparation for when the levee walls broke. He made the city limits by sundown and parked the truck in the driveway of his terrace house. 

He sat at the old wooden table in the kitchen, tin case in front.  The light was natural albeit dull through the sheer kitchen curtains which blustered on this windy day. Intermittent showers swept over little lawns and shrubs. The smell of rain. The temperature somewhere between warm and cool. Branches brushed against the windowpane. The two-tone tiles beneath his feet were cool to the touch.

The terrace house was old and quaint. Distant trains rumbled and clacked along adjacent lines. Traffic stammered along busy roads, accelerations sent swishes of water which sprayed across sidewalks and unsuspecting pedestrians.  The odd jet plane screamed across the sky.

He considered a thing. He pondered what calibration of the tools of human understanding were required to derive the actual meaning of the thing itself.  That thing was abundance. He did not share with his contemporaries their exacerbated respect for wealth and all the other accoutrements of status.

Inside the terrace house, it was quiet. Quiet enough to hear the crackle of paper upon inhale. His exhale sent plumes of heady smoke into the corners of the kitchen; smoke lingered in the air waiting to be further dissolved by a thoroughfare of breeze. A column of smoke drifted over to a doorway. Beyond which the lounge room beckoned.

The great Southern Ocean was now four days south. Upon her arrival the area was enveloped by an immense dust storm which returned visibility to zero. She could not cover her caravan in time and had little hope of attending to it with the prevailing furious winds. A distracted day at work harbouring anxieties of what she was going home to materialized from the moment she saw her caravan from the trailer park entrance.  It was the colour of the earth, all over. Inside resembled a scene from another planet. Everything was concealed in dust. She managed to lay a tarpaulin over the van belatedly. However, the van was uninhabitable until the storms subsided. They raged on for another fortnight. 

In the meantime, Carla settled into an underground motel unlike anything she had ever seen. And it had been a very long time since Carla lived anywhere else besides within her caravan.  She was resigned to the arduous task of cleaning an infinite number of beads, jump rings, hooks, clasps, crimps, chain and everything.  Every cm of her 27-foot van, inside and out was obscured by dirt. She gladly substituted the ablutions block of the trailer park for an ensuite bathroom and her little galley kitchenette for a full sit down licenced restaurant. Hell raged on the surface of the earth however underneath in her subterranean dwelling the ambience was quiet and calm if not a little surreal.

She went to work, the weeks passed and storms subsided. Now it was time to head back to the trailer park and start cleaning. At the end of her three-month contract she was still cleaning.

Carla was given an education in sapphires, opals and other precious stones, synthetic or otherwise by different people. Each person made the understanding more confusing. It became very expensive and difficult to tell what was valuable or not. Carla preferred paper and clay. People tended to have five dollars in their pocket for something pretty.

The next contract took Carla further along to the centre of the country and a festival in full swing. She’d read how boats as floats were raced on foot by teams dashing down a dry river bed. However, upon her arrival it was pouring rain, the river swelled with water and the annual boat race was cancelled. 

Upon commencement of her six-week contract at the regional office she was greeted by staff smiling broadly. Staff bearing their teeth. First it was the after-work drinks, then the ‘team’ Sunday lunch at someone’s private residence, finally the camping trip away ‘together’. All forced teaming exercises were declined by Carla.  At the end of her contract they didn’t notice when she had packed up, vacated her desk and left the building.

She drove west. All the gorges she passed were crowded with tourists. Within hours she was looking at a long straight dirt road heading into apparent nothingness.  Earth and sky fused into a blurry haze of blank space. Intense heat, no cover. Carla knew that caravans did not go this way. If she broke down beyond this point it would take some time before she was found, if she was found at all. She turned around.

She had begun her journey from the east, travelling south to north across to the west. North in the west to south and around to the centre. She had traversed varying sections of habitat, negotiated and navigated vast swathes of country in her caravan, her great land ship. Now all that remained was to fill in the gaps and do more laps.  She headed north back to the dense humidity. Wet season was approaching.

She tracked along behind a convey of caravans to the border, turning off at a roadhouse and trailer park. Remembered by the elderly woman behind the counter in a small town, Carla spoke briefly of her travels. She ordered rissoles, gravy with mash potato and was shown a seat by the window overlooking the highway.   

Her attention was stolen by the TV news turned up louder than she was comfortable with. That night Carla dreamt…

“It’s such a quiet street. We hardly heard anything from them. They seemed like really nice people. We’re all in shock”. Said the concerned resident.

The reporter thanked the concerned resident for her time on this very difficult day for the community.

“Got it” snapped the camera man and they went their separate ways.

Anna, the reporter was consigned to a robbery across town and left with her make up team where another camera crew was on scene.

Steve the camera man went back to the truck with Rob the sound guy. The 'concerned resident' was  42-year-old Yvette. Following the interview she walked three blocks to a waiting black SUV with heavily tinted windows. She climbed inside ripping off her wig, scarf and fake skin which gave to the cameras an aged persons  appearance. 

Madeleine, the producer was ensconced in the studio located in the bowels of a building occupied by a major television network.  Hundreds of monitors surrounded her running ceaseless amounts of stock footage.  She phoned Yvette to congratulate her and make a date.

Yvette was not going to turn down her former theatre practitioner. She would never have developed into a highly sought after method actress without Madeleine’s tutelage and connections.

Afternoon shadows fell across the megalopolis like a Dark Lord. Neon lights dazzled above the heads of millions trudging their way into subways to be herded onto trains and taken to nowhere, home.

Yvette was bodysliding Madeleine in the spa situated in the lounge room of Madeleine’s opulent inner city penthouse suite.  A giant wall size monitor announced the 6PM evening news. They turned onto their stomachs and looked up at the screen. Madeleine reduced the jets of the spa and increased TV audio.

Booming dramatic music swelled to a cacophony of thumping timbrels. Baritone utterances of the male anchor announced in ‘breaking news’ a major tragedy in the cities south western suburbs today.  He crossed urgently to ‘reporter on the scene’ Emma who equally dramatically administered a formulation of the day’s ‘terrible occurrence’. 

Emma delivered “We cross now to Anna for her crucial interview with a concerned resident.”

“It’s such a quiet street. We hardly heard anything from them. They seemed like really nice people. We’re all in shock”. Said Yvette, just as rehearsed.

“Perfect” purred Madeleine as the jets thundered back into action. She rolled Yvette over in the fizzing bubbling water and bodyslided her...

Carla woke in fright to the sounds of a man sneezing in a neighbouring caravan. A dog barked in response. Crows cawed across a brightening sky which breached the dead of night.  She rose slowly, put the kettle on and cursed the  dream.

A lifetime ago Carla worked at reception of the channel 3 television and radio network in the inner city. Her apartment was a block away from China town. A block the other side were the city markets. Restaurants queued along the boulevard.  A dizzying array of culinary and lubricious encounters attended to the desires of the bourgeoise.  Carla/Yvette was a receptionist/method actress to the media ring and their avaricious appetites for indulgence and extravagance both in and out of hours of work. In the game you were sex or food for pseudologically fantastic personalities. Yvette found herself to be both. Nihilism, psychosis and manic pursuit crossed boundaries and blurred lines between work and leisure. Now good was bad, up was down and left was right.  Ego’s clashed as behemoths and the losers cleaned out their lockers in dishonour and shame. Character assassination and the casting of aspersions were prevailing strategies. Gaslighting, manipulation and blackmail were commonplace occurrences. One would be praised and lambasted in equal measure. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Yvette, spirited by cocaine, heroin, hashish and alcohol reeled from various forms of abuse. She called her resignation with a story about her sick mother who lived out of state. Her mother died long ago but nobody needed to know that because nobody knew a truth. 

She tended an electronic letter of resignation, packed a suitcase and took the train to central. She walked into the Deed Poll Office as a person named Yvette, paid $70.00, and left as a person named Carla. She bought thrift shop clothing, discarded her bling and had her hair refashioned to a style she had never worn before. She stood on the country terminal awaiting the first train out of the city. The loss of an only way of life brought on a vacuum of grief and unknowing within herself. To those she was leaving, they were losing an easy part of their lives.  She had indeed deserted the cause and abandoned the cult.

The train arrived. It hissed and shunted to a stop. She stepped into the vestibule area and shuffled along nearer to the back of the carriage. She dropped into a vacant seat, nursed herself into the nook of a window frame and hinged her suitcase beside herself like a barricade. She pushed on her hat and shuffled her sunglasses as the horn blew and the train lurched away. She watched along the towering city, viewing its backside from the tracks until it was displaced by sprawling suburbs. In the  glow of late afternoon her soft reflection in the window became vivid. The sparsely populated carriage felt warm and insular to outside winter conditions.  As the country side emerged Carla closed her eyes and dozed.  Like a kaleidoscopic children’s toy, images from the recess of memory merged and reflected into other images in an ever-changing internal cinema production.

The train rocked from side to side as it picked up speed across the plains. Carla awoke as the dim overhead lamps in the carriage took effect. A deep, cold dusk had taken hold outside. Sodium lights illuminated small town streets and smoke billowed out of chimneys. Burning coal scented the cold night air.  Smaller towns flashed by. 

Carla alighted seven hours later in a large regional town and booked into a hotel. In the coming days she found a bedsit apartment and work at the casino. She followed an advertisement in the paper and joined a nationwide  agency who provided administration assistants.  Their clients were government office and corporate sector.

The thought of adventure around the country was countered by the thought of where she was going to stay. One evening she came home from work exhausted and crashed on the sofa. She woke at 2AM with the TV still on. A movie was ending with an elderly couple driving out of the city in a caravan.  

The exhilarating feeling of take-off eased into a comfortable rest for several hours absorbing colour gradients and wondering if it rains above the clouds.  Carla declined the on-board movie. She instead replayed a series of feature films of her life inside her mind.  Her soft refection in the window became more apparent as dusk became night. The bland evening meal was consumed with water and a succession of smooth ‘ping’ tones informed people that the cabin lights would dim. Passengers prepared to sleep. Carla applied ear pieces and focused on the white wingtip strobe lights until sleep finally found her.

She was roused by the gentle chatter of people pointing to the silver incandescence around the cabin’s fuselage. The dawning sun reflecting off the clouds.  Checking her time piece after breakfast, the flight was 16 hours on with 8 hours remaining.  Two back to back documentary movies, lunch and a foreign radio broadcast, Carla was aching to land.  A metropolis came into view. Barotrauma kicked in from the plane’s steady descent. People were furiously blowing through their pinched noses and performing swallowing exercises. Children and babies cried. The plane inched its way to the terminal. Passengers stared at the seat belt release symbol above them ready to spring to their feet, attack the overhead luggage compartments and charge the exits.  

She wobbled along the chute towards the passenger gates. Officials scrutinised her passport in a language unknown to her although the intimidation felt familiar. Her aching eyes watched people collecting their baggage, meeting their loved ones and getting on with life. Anxious time passed before the carousel finally spun her luggage out from thick rubber flaps onto the conveyer belt by which time most people had filed out of the terminal.

Carla stood outside on the footpath beside her luggage blinded. The mosaics above her filtered a dizzying array of pure sunlight. Whitewashed geometric cantilevers arched from airport entry to the street in  contrast with a foreground of ochre. Carla was correspondingly attired in a wrist-to-ankle light cotton garment with a white head scarf.  The sky was cobalt blue. It was hot though snow dusted the tops of the alluring mountain ranges to the south.

Men with their private taxis hustled for business. Carla took the bus and rode with local people. She pulled the scarf over her face as a veil and inserted ear pieces pretending she was listening to music. She held her phone as if engaged to it. She peered out the window watching people going about their business. As the bus meandered through modern civic instalments her breath was suddenly taken by the sight of the imposing red terracotta walls of the old city. She moved in her seat with excitement.

Carla alighted near her riad and booked in. She tipped the porter then literally charged upstairs and hit the shower on the burst, clothing and all. She peeled off her garment in the shower, stood in trance for a while, then stepped out into a balmy evening infused with the aroma of spices. Carla looked around her. Palms crowded a private terrace decorated with turquoise and ultramarine blue tiles. Fountains sprung from a bath in which Carla dipped her feet in, feeling the soothing splash of water from faucets. A soft orange glow radiated through the palms casting their waving patterns about the courtyard. She would settle in for an evening another time. 

In a myrtle and olive wrist-to-ankle garment with matching veil and scarf of the lightest texture, Carla meandered along streets between vendors, motorbikes and donkeys hauling produce. A wall of noise encased her and grew louder nearer her destination. Around another corner she paused to absorb her first sight.

Innumerable monochromatic yellow beams blazed from sodium lamps illuminating the towering red terracotta walls of the market. The intensity of the event struck Carla in a physical sense as she attempted to orientate herself. Glimmering coloured lanterns hung by the chiliad, blinking as they swung with the evening breeze. Scents and smells of foods drifted from every direction and people sung from their souks and performed on otherworldly musical instruments.

Carla covered her head and face with her scarf and wandered through the maze perusing thousands of objects. She breathed in the scents of high pointed mounds of spices and salivated at the endless rows of food vendors. She walked around the perimeter and looked at the tall walls of the old city up close. She rubbed her hand along and felt the dusting scrape off in coral coloured crumbs through her fingers onto the dirt ground.   

What seemed like hours passed when Carla sensed people were packing up for the night. She exited the great market and was struck by the silence only several streets from the entrance. Carla made her way to her riad. She brushed through the palms to her private terrace, disrobed, lay in her bath as droplets danced around her from fountains. She looked up at the twinkling stars.

24hours of flight and intense sensory bombardment, yet Carla was awake by 8AM.  She felt somewhat obliged to tour the outer limits of the city however did not care for the  organised tour group experience. She was content to spend day and night at the market. She purchased jewellery and garments, mailing them back to herself at the trailer park where her caravan was secured.  She looked to purchase a musical instrument however was not sure whether it would pass through customs.

Carla drifted about for a few more days then took a three hour bus journey to the coast. With a few local people on board, the bus bounced and threw its way across the deserts surface. Sheer cratered rock which had come under siege from hailing cosmic debris and war made for winding tracks.  Scruffy goats by the roadside leaned towards the oncoming bus before sprinting away in clouds of dust. 

They approached what looked to be a bombed out village where every crumbling building was the colour of faded salmon. In searing heat, the air was the colour of cantaloupe. They stopped outside a café. Large colour-dense rugs draped over the windows and around the courtyard. Carla looked carefully over the rugs running her hand across the fabric. They were like paintings with loom. A shopkeeper approached Carla asking if she was staying. She could show Carla how the rugs came to be. She motioned beyond the counter into a private courtyard. Here, the aunties gathered and introduced themselves to Carla amidst bougainvillea, olive trees and herb gardens. They were settled nomads from an ancient tribe and offered Carla mint tea, home-made bread and nuts. They wove the rugs Carla could see decorating the café and courtyards.

Carla agreed to stay with the women a night and was introduced to her lodgings. Her riad was painted in the eclectic palette of fuchsia, lime green, scarlet and lemon. The faded air of the sunburnt village darkened into the warm golden glow of an ale as dusk emerged. A cool breeze gently lifted hanging rugs away from a wall, and back. Glimmering lights shimmered in beautiful lanterns which adorned the walls and grew bolder as darkness came. Carla allowed the women to dress her in Saharan djellabahs, paint her feet with henna and her eyes with kohl.

Carla awoke gently to the sounds of women softly attending to their routines. Coffee and breakfast was ready. Women sat at their weaving wheels and spun designs in loom. Carla desired many rugs with patterns she would drape around the walls of her caravan another world away. Late in the morning a bus which looked to have survived many blasts and roll-overs braked abruptly outside the café. Carla boarded and the women waved goodbye.    

Not more than two hours on and Carla was walking along the harbour where a dozen fishing boats in an assortment of fading colours were tethered together in low tide.  They had seen better days as had the fortress walls which protect the anchorage revered throughout antiquity far and beyond the ocean. It was an anomaly somewhat that she booked into contemporary accommodation that offered free wi-fi.

Carla stood on the footpath beside her luggage outside the airport and looked up at the mosaics filtering a dizzying array of sunlight. The whitewashed geometric cantilever which ran from airport entry to the street held her gaze until she sought the international departure lounge.

***

Her plane launched across the sky and skidded to a screaming halt on a flooded runway. It was raining. Still, it had been a short four hour plane flight. Carla booked out her motorhome and here she was, driving out of the capital city known in part for a dirty old river and black beer.  

A few hours on she paused to stretch her legs in a pretty town known as ford of the oak. Quaint straw thatched cottages with colourful pubs and shops sprinkled along the streets. Abbeys, monasteries and castles punctuated the rivers and hills on a back drop of emerald green. In a few hours more Carla was looking out past rocky outcrops toward the harbour along channels to the setting sun and a vast ocean. For some in history, also the end of the world. 

Taken in by the colours of the buildings in the village, cliff tops and wildflowers, Carla stopped and sought a room to stay the night. As the remnants of dusk succumbed to nightfall, skuas, storm petrels and shearwaters made for nest along the peninsula. Carla was drawn by the enchanting letters and designs inscribed over doorways to shops and pubs. The lodging was arranged in the general store. A kind old lady showed keys and walked her down the cobblestone road.

Carla looked at her cabin which blended seamlessly into the landscape as a tree or a rock. Stone with lime, sand mortar and tempered clay made the walls. The steeply, sloped roof was thatched. All the materials for the building were sourced locally long ago. It stood well today, harmonious with the earth. She stepped inside and was warmed instantly by the hearth around which hung pots and pans. It also heated the water. Stacked alongside the hearth were blocks of peat. Dried out, heated and pressurized blocks of dried rotten vegetation from the bog. The old lady left her to settle in and provided a dinner and drink voucher at the hotel. 

As the light faded, Carla put on all her jackets and braved the icy gusts blasting across the path from the roaring ocean. She walked the hundred or so yards past the shop which was closed. Next door, warm amber light spilt out from a narrow doorway where distinct and peculiar music could be heard.

About a dozen people of various age both women and men sat around a large old wooden table. Upon which supported as many glasses of black beer at various stages of consumption. The accordion, banjo, tin whistle, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, a bodhran and the uilleann pipes crowded the space.  Carla approached the counter where the old lady from the neighbouring general store served her yet again. A stew was in order and a glass of black beer. Carla sat away at a dinette casting her gaze between the musicians and the deserted, frozen outside road.

Jigs, reels, hornpipes and airs with the odd contemporary arrangement was on the song list as Carla feasted upon the stew and adjusted to the black beer. Carla quietly observed that many traditional tunes were carried in E and A minor keys. The dream keys. She left following her third glass of beer lest she could not carry herself back to her cabin. The crew were now in 2/4 time and increasing in tempo, soaring to great heights. Carla could hear them all the way home and all throughout her sleep. They played on in her wondrous dreams.

The next morning Carla visited an unattended gift shop. She rang the bell and waited. Yet again, the old lady from the general store and pub came to serve her. Carla asked about the berry coloured shawl, crafted from superfine lambswool and nylon. It was beautiful, Carla bought the clothing and wrapped it around herself with help from the lady. She bought a matching cushla and a ticket on the ferry.

The ferry heaved, pitched and shoved its way through turgid waters all the way to the archipelago. A quick vomit and Carla spent a few hours walking along the limestone pathways on a barren island noting the cliff faces. The Artic, Mediterranean and Alpine plants grew side by side. Wind gusts blew her sideways. The guide pointed to a chain of smaller islands too dangerous to access. Carla could make out collapsed piles of stone dotted over the plateau. Among these were where the weavers and merchants of traditional clothing lived in times gone by. They made their garments to be moisture-resistant, durable and able to withstand harsh climates.  Carla hugged her shawl and wished to see someone make such an item of clothing.

Carla made the return trip across the emerald isle and returned her motorhome to the airport the next evening. The next flight was seven hours long due west.

***

Upon arrival, she was caught up and trampled along the one way corridor to the end of which a vast swirling crowd forged a mosh pit in the vestibule area. She sat on her luggage outside the terminal as thousands of people trounced past. Snow and rain fell together, the gutters collected slush. The yellow taxi cabs dropped into their allocated spot, loaded their passengers and launched into streams of traffic with all the goal-orientated hostility of a war front.  Carla stumbled around the block and caught a shuttle camouflaged in street art. When a slew of international hotels came into view she alighted smartly. Tightening her berry shawl and tugging down on her cushla Carla booked into a hotel and found she had booked into a closet. An online search revealed the ‘closet’ was a global trend in city accommodation. 

Mildly distressed her expensive hotel room came with no seating arrangements she looked for somewhere to bide time.  She turned a corner and faced a blizzard as ice, snow and rainwater minced underneath her feet. She passed a laneway which ran a length between brick and concrete walls. Over a doorway a neon sign blazed away in green, white and red with the image of a pizza being flipped into a wood fired oven. Carla appreciated the respite walking up the laneway to the restaurant. She peered in through the glass then activated the jingling bells above the doorway. A large man in a white apron welcomed her and motioned toward a table by the window. Carla glanced around at the mostly unoccupied restaurant being mid-afternoon on a working day.

Every table wore a red checkered table cloth. Plastering the walls were newspaper spreads of the national soccer team and particular players, or “doyens of the greatest sport on the planet” as the large, heavily accented and jolly man declared.  A wall was dedicated to religious cards and posters depicting holy icons, their hearts aflame and their heads adorned with halos. The saints held listless facial expressions and their eyes looked up to the clouds. Photographs were pinned to spaces in between of family visits to La Festa della Donna, L’Ardia di San Constantino and the Infiorata amongst others. 

It was mid to late afternoon of the day when Carla finished her delicious coffee and pasta, however the darkness of night had already set in. She retired to her closet and slept. She was booked on the dawn flight to a country she had also read much about. She gathered her luggage and stepped out onto the sleet swept street. She yelled the yellow taxi to a screeching halt and ordered the driver to the airport.

***

The restrictions and bans vis-à-vis for this small island nation resulted in decades long economic, commercial and financial embargos.  The crown-controlled trading house that holds monopoly on New World trade for time immemorial persists in situ today. Still, the portrayal of struggle and the celebration of cultures in dance and song stirs in the bosom of people the world over. 

Carla cashed up at the airport and accepted a taxi ride in a Sky blue and silver 1958 Plymouth Belvedere. She followed along the sun-kissed streets with a map till she was dropped off at her casa particular. The rustic façade of the condominium invited her into a private courtyard adorned with lush, colourful vines, shrubs and ornamental furnishings. Water trickled into a small wading pool. The interior apartment was decorated in crimson, gold and azure blue. 

Refreshed from a bath Carla strolled the old city streets passing architecture influenced by every western city in millennia. Scores of old cars cruised its roads. She found along the promenade a café restaurant manifest of the old-world charm. A woman with a Spanish guitar sang tenderly to a smooth groove. Carla ate a small plate of antipasto with hams, cheeses, olives and bread with coffee and a bottle of water. Hours later she was still walking. She finally settled back into her condominium and took repose in a comfy bed to the whirring sounds of ceiling fans.

A roughed up bottle green 1971 Ford LTD Brougham hardtop sedan was parked a way down the road. A beat up taxi sign was mounted off centre upon the roof. Carla waited for its driver. An old man with a phat cigar dressed in a paisley shirt and grey slacks dropped in to the driver’s seat. He repositioned his oversized sunglasses and his brown wool flat cap. He shouldered the ignition sequence stomping double kick pedals. The engine coughed plumes of smoke then buzzed to life like a swarm of angry hornets.

10 minutes later Carla was handing over fare and looking at a street occasion. Senior female and male musicians sat beside each other along the wall of a footpath with guitars and percussion. Dogs slept in the curbing. A few dozen people danced on the street. Cars slowly approached and paused for conversation. The musicians split into five part harmonies to music and dance which journeyed through danzon, mambo, cha-cha-cha, rhumba and salsa.

Carla was still swaying on the plane as it banked over the city giving her one last look at cool.

***

The plane set down on another island over 8000km’s away due west and ten hours later. Just in time for a cyclone which made landfall the following morning.  It was downgraded with prevailing strong winds and rain before a volcano erupted on a nearby island. This meant flights were abandoned as thick ash blocked out the sun.

Shielding herself on the balcony she watched a notably pristine beach become ash covered terrain contoured by muddy bloated swells. The paths and roads were a slippery grey mush as the rain and ash congealed.  Carla studied the TV channels and called for pizza. Four days on, a brief delay in prevailing weather conditions enabled passengers to scramble onto planes for departure.

Never had Carla thought she would be so pleased to hear ‘Cabin crew cross-check and prepare for take-off’. More smooth pings alerted passengers to the dangers of Wi-Fi connection and flying without the seatbelt fastened. Cabin crew demonstrated safety vest instructions with their nice hands and showed passengers how to deploy evacuation procedures should the plane fall out of sky. Even how to sit in your seat as the plane nosedived into a vertical position before plummeting into the ocean. Carla smiled.    

He replaced the receiver on the phone and imagined.

He imagined himself walking down the aisle with Rosie, holding her hand, in a nursery. He loved the thought of selecting perennials with her. The thought of himself going one way and her the other, only to meet up in the shrub section.

Bringing the plants home and planning for dinner. Then she would watch a movie and he would sit at the dining table designing and making things, himself not fussed with television however keen to remain in her presence throughout the evenings.

And the years would pass.