What a time you've had. Doug
did I tell you about the time
6 year old Deano
got bit by a snake?
a King Brown got him.
luckily a Flying Doctor was
just half an hour away
cause normally that would've been
curtains for the little guy.
anyway, long story short,
he was on the RFDS plane
lying in his mother's arms,
shot through with anti-venom,
when he woke and looked into
his mother's eyes and said,
Fuck, Mum. fuck, fuck, fuck.
My wife had to throw him
out of class yesterday
for throwing things around.
It's just his boyish way,
but it distracts others ...
Did I tell you about the time
the bulls blockaged
the Ngallagunda Corporation office?
It was only yesterday, I was
up there delivering our
weekly mailbag to go to the plane.
Just the snuffling and hoofing of
dusty ground warned me: stop.
Wait. One big Brahman and one
brown bull grazing. As
luck would have it, the new
indigenous mustering leader,
Frederick, turned up with circular
sunglasses on and a dusty dirty t-shirt
soaking up the sweat which
beaded and dripped from his
shiny black face. He said
something to them in language,
just a syllable and a seeming grunt.
They turned and left by the gate,
Brahman first. He quietly
closed the gate. Don't think
I'll mess with Frederick.
... or how the nurse, MJ,
who is also a nun, but
you wouldn't ever know it, forty
years old, sneezes occasionally
on our evening walk with
her two Jack Russells, sneezes
and says, O God bless me.
I'd never heard anyone say that
to themselves before.
... or the gossip of
the six white people here,
the backbiting and bitchiness.
Two of them have been
seeded from another planet
and have strange beliefs.
The nun keeps her own counsel,
and I just laugh.
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aburke/
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