EVEN WHEN
Jigsaw, Madrid
"You are fleeing, even when there is no one chasing you," the elderly woman said. He could read sub-texts as easily as anyone. There were cruel passages, but none of it was for the better. These sorcerers would make their toxic traces, and then disappear. The preposterousness of all that had happened still sloshed around in his head, because he wouldn't be here if he hadn't been there. The suburbs were so quiet. "I like it like that," a man said. "Since they've blogged off the street, after about six there's no cars."
"Quiet," he repeated.
And again came the response: "I like it like that."
"Nothing much to do."
"It's nice. Peaceful."
Well, there was a peace, haunting moments, transcendent flashes of time where God rained down from a moon bright sky, where young men hung in cars on the coastal ledge, and everything came full circle. He remembered them from his youth, the alphas, the subordinates. Like men everywhere, elaborate pecking orders, or not so elaborate. Bashed into place. Because it had always been like that, had to be like that. Or else everything would run out of control, and no one would know who was boss.
Yes, the haunting still haunted him. Yes, there were days when he would have gratefully disappeared, as if this place wasn't silent, distant enough for true safety. As if being tracked was an enduring symbol of oddity. As if it had always been, and they were on the high moral ground. What a peculiar, ungrateful place.
"Falung have no power."
The voices had ringed where he once had lived. Had hoped. Had fallen apart in a circle of derision.
And to this day, some mornings, he remained disturbed by the viciousness exposed. As if they cared, or had ever cared.
"You are fleeing when there's nobody chasing you."
Everything seemed to be falling, caught in mid-air. Under mango trees, in too-quiet streets. In nasty customers at local shops celebrating the fact that he had been robbed. Laughing at him, to his face or behind his back. Casting forth, the expelled who had never belonged anywhere. The sky came closer over the point, the ocean moved as if alive, and he cranked up the music even louder, drowning out the voices from the other cars.
THE BIGGER STORY:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott never ceases to confound with his volunteering and community work. Is he the tough individualist you'd expect a conservative prime minister to be or a collectively minded softie? The answer will help determine the sort of country Australia becomes.
Will it be one that encourages empathy and the selfless volunteering/community spirit we have seen during this bushfire crisis? Or will Australia lurch towards a rationalist ''what's in it for me'' ethos the political zealots around Abbott prefer?
Abbott's volunteering work is a great example of what the nation needs leading into a summer of fires, floods and cyclones. Through his actions and policies such as the Green Army and Auscorps for university students, he seems to stand for self-sacrifice for the common good. Contrary to my colleague Mark Kenny's view, I believe Abbott should keep volunteering - we need him to be a role model for community cohesion.
Yet Abbott also leads a party that worships individualism. He sits alongside those who, like Margaret Thatcher, believe there is no society; that ''people must look to themselves first''. He sits among many who, like American philosopher Ayn Rand, think altruism is wrong because the highest moral purpose is self-interest. And Abbott often joins them in crying ''nanny state'' when governments try to nudge citizens into pro-social behaviour.