The First Man: Before We Die

They stood there on the distant shore, as if they were The First Man, as if they were seeing all this for the first time. He came to regret those indiscretions which were only meant to inflame an already inflamed situation, and he was caught under The Bell Jar, under that vicious dome they called the sky. The Origin of the Species. The vaulting light. The nausea of the sudden jolt, the resleeving they had all been waiting for; so the old personality was cast into a corner, the symbiote readjusting, the wrenching dis familiar, that strange sight in the intertidal zone. They see what you see, they are not from here.

We called forth armies to march for you, we terraformed entire planets so you could survive. The mist was rising. The myth was born. He clamoured forth in The Divine Light. Now, as the hordes drew nearer, he bifurcated once again; and the pleasure of pain, the humiliation of defeat, the old warrior talk, the mists that clung to those dungeon walls, here, here now, they surrendered their portals, they made as if to shake hands, they clamoured for a new life, they walked upon the surface, their heads swirled with disorientation, waves of nausea, a new sleeve. He walked upon the water and was born. 

There they were then, lighting up the place. Linkages grew everywhere. A new era was upon us. The transformation had begun. He sought to whisper in their ears but never reached them. The target, too, strained to hear in the contradictory battle that was a psyops program and a research vehicle, all in a room, all in a room, and he called forth the wonders and heard them chant as if from a distance. There was a moment of freeze frame madness, there were floods of discordant imagery, there was a new set of purpose, as if reborn. And he rose to take in the spray of water, he roamed across the surface and could see deep inside, they marshalled their forms, they made as if to become solid, they were born, they were born, and they stepped across the portal, and fled, instantly, into their surrounds. There was no coming back. There was no surrender. 

This place is ours now; we took it under cover and in disguise. We surrendered to your multiple pleasures. We stood blinking in the surprising light. Everything looked as if it was millions of years old. He bowed in gracious exit. Surrender. Let the world be yours now. He had served one purpose and would serve another. 

Hail the new world order. Make as if to flood tears down centuries. Make as if to see. As if to see.

THE BIGGER STORY: 

     Photojournalist Paul McIver spent months capturing the unfolding disaster of last season's bushfires in the Snowy Monaro region — from the fearsome pyrocumulonimbus clouds forming over the Monaro plain, to the destruction of delicate alpine forests and the fires descending upon his community in Rocky Hall.

"I first began photographing the fires in August, when there was still snow on the mountains," Mr McIver said.

"I knew it was going to be a season unlike anyone had ever seen. We were photographing scenes that really did resemble hell."