A Gully Far Far Away

As I lay there like the carcass of a mortally wounded beast, it came, a caterpillar slowly creeping through the desert night. Shinny eye’s illuminating each segment in front, dipping and curving through the gullies and ridges growling clanking circling me bathing me in light, covering all in a thick veiled of superfine bull dust.

An Angel appeared, I think it was an angle that cheese cloth dress with only panties on underneath surrendering her visage to the light. A water bottle, the gleam of a needle.

Faces appearing as if ghosts from the darkness , cold cold water more of that cold cold water.

Frantic shallow grunts of breath had formed a perfect a little clearing around my face where little villages of clay blood and snot had formed. I must have looked great, bones sticking out where there shouldn’t be. Blood, dust and snot caked my face my nose my eye’s my hair.

I wouldn’t mind more of that cold cold water.

Even at this hour it was hot up in the high thirties the day hadn’t even broken, Dry that dry that only ten years without moisture can produce. Down through which at one time would have been a creek, rough dry rock strewn gully with twisted dried out shrubs and tree roots looking to hook the unwary looking for life looking for water.

I was moving fast I remember going down, I thought I’d been shot, blinding pain the crack of what sounded like a rifle. Knowing instinctively that I might be in trouble, out here a 100 miles from nothing

For some time I just was, lying in that dried out gully with the tree roots and rocks, listening to the nothing. Letting the flow and ebb of life permeate my soul and into the realisation that the flow of life for that creek was now coming from me and what was left of my water bottle. Dazed sitting up taking stock, thinking funny my boot must have come off. How the fuck does your boot come off. Trying to stand breaking my fall with my face into the rocks, Quick sharp puff of dust stirred on each breath blurring my vision making everything like the dream-time.

Lying there watching the dried out roots trying to reach my tears. My boot was now in my lap I grabbed it trying to through it away, pain lots of pain, funny how that boot doesn’t want to leave.

Rolling over, my boot still would not leave the bones like white ivory sharp and splintered in stark contrast to the red soil gleamed. The unnatural new knee looked quite bizarre and the rocks and tree roots looked hungrily on at the growing flow of nutrients.

My left wrist twisted and malformed and face swollen and blue, a new knee joint...Pain lots of pain, in my subconscious I knew I had to move no one would ever find me down here, I had to get out into the open or I was pretty much dead. I couldn’t stand.

Memories I’d seen in movies came to mind where the hero gets shot in the leg and has multiple wounds and just gets up and hops to safety. What a load of shit I know now I am definitely not a hero.

I crawled using the good arm the shattered bones of my leg drawing a little furrow through the red dust and to the delight of the surrounding tree roots filling and flowing like a little creek with blood, every now and then the broken ends of bone being snagged by those fucking tree roots and rocks which seemed to be growing ever closer with the heat of the day.

I can’t do this, breathing in shallow sharp breaths trying desperately to keep the pain at bay and not pass out. The I can’t do this’es, where probably one of the most beautiful things in my life. The ticking of the cicadas’. The distant call of galas and beauty in the melodic caw of crows, the heat from the rocks where my face lay. The little puffs of dull dust each unnaturally rapid breath produced. The peace the tranquillity, in that twilight between unconsciousness and reality, such heaven.

I knew I couldn’t stay in heaven I needed to dam the creek before it ran dry. With quite a bit of effort I managed after a number of tries to remove my shirt, I ripped of a sleeve and one handed with a dried old stick twisted a neat little loop above the wound I felt so proud, thinking no more creeks for you

After each I can’t do this I’d set a mark to get to, it may have been only a couple of meters it may have been ten I cannot recall. Thirst I know what thirst is I know what it’s like to be dry that dry that only ten years without moisture can produce, to be that at which one time would have been a creek, rough dry rock strewn gully with twisted dried out shrubs and tree roots looking to hook the unwary looking for life looking for water. I know that there is a multitude of different types of pain that you acquaint yourself with as you drag yourself across the desert floor the heat burning blisters into your skin. Too love that pain to flow with it as water flows within a river.

It took me a while, perhaps the whole day, dragging resting recovery, dragging resting recovery

I finally inched out of the gully onto a rough old track I lay with my face in the dust each breath once again puffed plumes of red bull dust forming beautiful streams of lace with rivulets and patterns that clouded the massive red sun as it sang its goodnight. The thoughts where ones of beauty and awe that something could so perfectly blended with my pain and thirst, it could only be described as orgasmic otherworldly unique. I thought maybe I am dead.

I lay, for some time I just was, a drone a faint underlying drone gradually working into my consciousness far, far away faint removed remote it grew more annoying, it just kept getting louder and louder so fucking annoyingly loud. They had found me. The boys on the bikes.

One stayed for support, one left to get help at the nearest settlement over 100 km away. We didn’t talk much only to joke, it wasn’t all that bad, had worse paper cuts, the usual manly things, though I did notice the draining of blood and the grimace on his face. I just lay back down in that dust I wanted to listen to the night as it came.

It was late you could see the outline of the tree’s on the ridges in that quiet that’s the full moon, the stars shone in a truly exquisite display and the river of the milky way flowed ever on into the night. Off in the distance I imagined I could see a caterpillar.

Things were getting a little fuzzy dehydration pain and all the day had tried to teach took their toll, I can remember the Caterpillar and of course my Angle and how desperately I fort when they tried to take my faithful boot.

The rest of the trip back to civilisation was one of mostly pain. Far more an ocean for me than a creek The back of a four times four over one hundred kilometres of rocky country with every bump grinding one bone against another has its own charms and its own lessons. The faint recollection of being loaded onto an aircraft and waking up of my body, stark bright light of the operating theatre sterile glaring clean one thousand seven hundred km away in the nearest major hospital. And of course the four and a half years I had to wear those fucking metal frames.

I walk now down these corridors of higher learning with slightly a limp feeling blank looking at faces expressions, moving from lecture to lecture tutorial to tutorial trying to see the scars in others eyes that glint of shared recognition, I’m here to learn to gather experience to be schooled about the world. I sit in classes surrounded by the young the middle aged the learned.

I’m actually sitting right here now, imagine that, in a lecture, feeling surreal and a little like I’m in an alternate reality, listening to the world and surrounded by the new, I look at my boots and wonder that within the imagination of these chosen few if they can feel and see the beauty, the reality forming those beautiful streams of lace with rivulets and patterns that clouded that massive red sun as it sang its goodnight, can they know what thirst is, know what it’s like to be dry, that dry that only ten years without moisture can produce, to be a creek, rough dry rock strewn gully with twisted dried out shrubs and tree roots looking to hook the unwary, looking for life, looking for water. To know that there is a multitude of different types of pain that you acquaint yourself with as you drag yourself across the desert floor the heat and pain burning intricate patterns upon your soul. To love that pain to flow with it as water flows within a river.

Could I even begin to explain the flow of life as I had once experienced in a little gully far far away.