Rust Red

Red. A dirty, rust-red stretching as far as the eye can see, the jarring intensity of the sunset deepening its vivid hue. I always likened this earth to dried blood, the sand beneath my boots an open wound. Broome was always an arid place but now the analogy I used for her soil holds a deeper resonance. I still remember the life of this land, the prevailing gums that seemingly survived anything, no drought too long. The dingo and wild dogs that preyed upon my livestock. The silhouette of the eagles marring the sky, their slow circling a reminder that the land took life as much as it gave it. Now it just takes, no giving. With the colours of the bush gone, and the sounds of its inhabitants just as absent, the life I once knew is just that; a memory, and the open wound now a scar.

I stand before my old homestead, the gate ajar just as it had been left, as if waiting for my return. Its concrete pillars and rusted gate the only members left standing of what once was a fortified complex of fencing, barbed wire now twisted and strewn across the ground, its wooden posts long uprooted and disintegrated.

Glass crunches underfoot as I walk up the road towards the looming figure of my house. The sun-bleached timbers of her frame resembling a skeleton with the tin and weatherboard that made up the exterior now missing in places. when I close my eyes, I can picture the vibrancy of the wildflowers you used to plant around the foundations.

There’s no need for a key as the door lies on the ground, and I walk over it as I head up the front porch and into the house. I find myself in the kitchen with the wind gently whistling through the windows, their broken glass scattered across the floor and submerged in red sand. For the most part, everything sits in the places they were left. I feel the growing ache in my chest as I walk from room to room, the last of the sun’s rays painting the ruin in a golden glow.

I finish my journey at the back porch, facing the receding light.

The silence is deafening and in the surrealness of it, I find myself looking down at my hands as if to remind myself I am here, not adrift in a memory. I’m old now, hands callused and joints swollen with early-onset arthritis. Would you recognise me now? with my greying beard and tired skin like leather?

I step off the porch into your garden. I picture the colours, I hear your laugh and see your long, black hair. I see the red under your nails from a hard day’s work, and the joy in your eyes when the season’s first rains hit. I remember watching you dance through the downpour like a child. From my pocket, I pull out your necklace. The heart-shaped and tarnished locket dangling from a fine chain. You had a photo of me in it, but now I have one of you. You stare back at me from the confines of the metal, a wide smile wrinkling your nose. The memories I have of you dance through my mind, relief in the midst of this feverish dream.

It’s 2042, the wars' long ended and the fires put out. I’d hoped that with it over, having been what took you from me it would bring me some peace. It hasn’t. I still come here.

I remember your favourite song and the melancholic guitar rings clear as a bell, the words echoing through me as if I heard them yesterday.

“Caught swimming in your new sundress

Blood red just like your new Corvette

Keep living like the sun don't set

Dance for me darling

Pirouette”