Unfolding Catastrophe: Australia
All of which brings us to Australia as the year 2020 drew to a close.
There was a peculiar air, an ordinariness about it all, which belied the world we were about to enter. Kids on bikes in suburban streets. Mothers pushing prams. Joggers tuning their already finely tuned bodies. The flick of an eyelid. A barely contained smile. A place where we could see and be seen. Slumped at a table; a vaulting sky careening above him. Lots of drunken raves and distressed, careening narratives. He would come to you at nighttime. There in the dawn. He resisted the swarm; and his own swarming. He made as if to say: this is not for me. He heard the usual interpretations. Americans. Hunter S Thompson. The days went by in some cruel logic. His mother was up the hill dying, and no amount of fretting or checking or fussing, no amount of running little chores or dropping by for breakfast was going to change that.
Go In Peace My Daughter. Suffer No More.
He heard the querulous logic of it all and disengaged. Discredited, incompetent, corrupt, the dysfunctional governments of the day placed themselves front and centre of the Covid Scare, the walls thinner, the edge of the sanctuary more pock marked. They would never know what happened. What they missed. He would never tell the stealth operators to restore the sanctuary. He wasn't about to let them hold sway.
Yes, born here amongst the debris. The fluctuating voices and the calls from afar, the blessed heat and the arrhythmic heart, the shadow calls of blessings as the familiars gathered, all, all were there in the evening beckoning the wraiths.
It was as if we had never been.
The right to be forgotten.
And every day the warnings grew stronger. Every day the sliding glints more pronounced. The spatial distortions cascaded as he walked, one minute a giant footprint over the suburb, at another reaching up to pull a helicopter out of the sky.
We would embrace you. We will embrace you. My brother. My brother.
Trust No One.
THE BIGGER STORY:
Coronavirus Australia live news: NSW COVID-19 cases update for Northern Beaches cluster
New South Wales has recorded 15 new coronavirus cases, with more than 38,000 people tested in the past day.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said all cases were linked to the Northern Beaches cluster.
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Key events
57mminutes agoNSW records 15 new cases of coronavirus
1hhour agoQld records zero new local cases
3hhours agoVictoria records zero new local cases
4hhours ago'You've just got to lockdown metropolitan Sydney', Dr Norman swan says
5hhours agoTougher new COVID-19 restrictions come into effect across Greater Sydney