Wyndham Hospital, January 8, 1988.

In a cold white walled hospital room I try to sit up and reaching for the handle that floats above me, I shift the wrong way. Pain hits my legs, and I moan and the nurse comes to my bed. She has a kind face, and she smiles with everyone. I like her. She sees pain. The kind-faced nurse looks over my bandages, taps the needle in my arm and checks the bottle hanging the wrong way on a thin silvery pole.

‘How are you feeling today young lady?’

‘It burns a bit,’ I say, rubbing my side.

I fade back into the pillow and sigh and with eyes closed I listen to my breathing. The sounds of the room leave me alone just long enough to see Country. The nurse hands me pills and some water, ‘This is your latest medicine.’

‘I don’t like the noises here,’ I say.

‘It should help with some of the pain.’

‘You want my rations. The white stuff tastes like mud. I like the jelly and fruit but not the rest,’ I say.

‘You need to eat a little bit of breakfast. Oats give strength,’ she says.

I swallow the white pills with some water and lean back and breathe out heavily. Turning to the

wrong-way bottle and tapping the side with her long fingernail, she adds, ‘Someone’s coming in from the office to talk with you.’

I try and rest but the air gets cold when a lady rushes into the room and stands close next to my bed. I stare at her face and take a sip from my cup. She stares at the folder in her hands.

I’m sad with her near me.

‘I work in the office,’ she says very fast looking past me when she speaks, ‘I need to ask you some questions.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Six minutes past eight o’clock,’ she says, looking at her gold watch.

The kind nurse leans over, smiles and fixes my pillow and touches my arm gently when the fast-speaking woman asks, ‘Can you tell me why you’re here?’

‘My beds cold,’ I tell her.

‘It says here you’re having trouble going to the toilet,’ the woman adds.

‘You feel cold because your legs don’t have full circulation. The blood isn’t going all the way down,’ kind nurse says.

‘Ok,’ I say smiling and closing my eyes. ‘I’ll get you another blanket,’ she adds.

‘Do you know why you’re here?’

‘I left Wyndham Country.’

‘No, here in hospital.’

‘Only one kidney works.’

‘There you go,’ the nurse says, laying the extra blanket over my legs.

‘Is that all?’ the cold lady grumbles.

‘I fell down.’

‘How did you get to casualty ward?

‘I was put on the bus and then walked in the heavy doors out there,’ I say, closing my eyes and tired of the cold lady in the room.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t drive,’ I say softly.

‘She means where from?’ the nurse says, softly.

‘St Vincent’s church. The one with the tall white doors,’ I say, smiling.

‘That’s a long way. Where is your house?’ says the lady.

‘I like the gold stands holding the candles and I like how the glass windows shine in the sun and they let me sit there. No questions,’ I say, opening my eyes.

I stare past the women and try to see into the church. The folded white material, wooden seats and

happiness in the air and whitefellas shuffling to sit and wait for the man in his fancy tablecloth clothes, carrying his book and his shiny stick.

‘It’s pretty at that one,’ the nurse adds.

‘And they have food. The young man gives me fresh damper most days,’ I say.

‘Home. Where do you sleep? Where is your house?’

The cold office lady moves and her shoes squeak and she looks down at her folder, fiddles with the bottom corner and waits. Her moving’s are too fast for her eyes. She looks past me and then turns away and shifts again in the chair and brushes down her clothes with her hairy left hand where she has a half pinkie finger, ‘What happened to your hand?’

The cold lady stands, groans and her shoes talk as she rushes out of the room. When the nurse goes to the other beds, I’m alone and sleep until the rattling trolleys and smells of daytime rations wash over me.

Painfully.

I try to eat.

Another lady comes to sit by my side. She has a long narrow head like a wallaby. Her face is wrinkled and when she moves her clothes make heavy noises like a tree falling. She speaks softly to the nice nurse standing near the end of another bed and then turns to me.

‘I’m Sister Mary.’

‘The rations here have no taste,’ I say, chewing on a piece of warm grey meat.

‘I’m here to see if you need anything?’ she says, slowly.

‘I do.’

‘How can we help?’

I wait a long time before answering, ‘I want to go home.’

‘It’s not possible at the moment.’

‘What day is it?’ I say.

‘It’s a Friday,’ she says.

The taste in my mouth reminds me of swamp mussels that have been in the sun too long. I sip some water washing down the rations. I close my eyes and I see the river, and mud and sand and barramundi flipping in the rocks, ‘I wanna be home on Country and die my way’ … I sit up a little bit and stare at this woman, ‘Hmmm,’ she says turning her head away and looking down and tickling her ear.

‘Can I go home Monday?’

I lift the sheet and show her my legs, ‘I can walk.’

‘You’re far too sick.’

‘Hasn’t ever stopped,’ I say, closing my eyes.

She coughs and stands and I hear her dress wind talking as she walks out. The nurse arrives back in the room and turns on the small light above my head, fixes my blanket, and fills my water jug, ‘Tell them fellas I want to go home,’ I say.

‘Hmmm, me too.’

My face swells and my eyes become wet. I wipe tears with the corner of a tattered piece of hanky cloth and try to sit up. The nurse helps by lifting me under my arm.
When I’m settled she hands me a paper cup, ‘Here’s your next lot of medicine.’

‘I won’t bother anyone if I go back to Country,’ I say.

‘The doctor wants you to stay a little bit longer.’

‘I need my…’

She cuts off my words by pulling at the needle in my arm and the orange tube shoots pain through me. I bite down on my handkerchief and slide an old envelope out from under my pillow, ‘That which cradles burns thy soul…’ I say.

‘What’s that you’ve being hiding there?’

‘A letter from my husband.’

‘You were married?’

I smile, ‘Yes.’

‘Sounds like you miss him?’

‘He loved me right from the start.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘I do.’

Katherine Hospital January 6, 1995.

I open my eyes and look around the pale white walled room with a grey edge. The other fella died last night so I have the place to myself. Except for the pain and the nurses and the cleaner and the trolley lady.

I wait in pain.

Always the pain, now. The nurse shuffles in and fixes my pillows and holds two paper cups out then checks her hanging watch. I take the pills with a slug of cool water, ‘Do you think this old bed’ll hold-up?’

‘I hope so,’ she says.

‘The rooms here smell like pond scum and poisoned waterhole.’

‘Can’t recall that experience,’ she says, smiling.

‘I hate this place,’ I say, as she pulls the blanket down and shifts me onto my side and the under sheets tighten my grip to the mattress. I wince and we roll back. I stare up at the ceiling and look for cattle and open water and smile.

‘When can I go back home?’

‘It won’t be today.’

‘Why not?’

‘You need to be seen by the doctor again.’

‘That lot keep telling me I have to stay in here for at least two weeks.’

‘Yes, and they will keep telling you that until you can walk out by your own steam.’

‘Righto,’ I say, defeated.

I like this nurse she’s good with me. She laughs at my jokes and puts up with plenty o’bullshit. Better than the doctor who tends to me a little later. He has a look about him like a lost calf. His eyes are too wide and his shoulders twitch nervous when he walks around the bed and he stares past me when he talks. Can’t trust a fella who doesn’t look you in the eye.

‘Mr. Daly, I’m concerned about your blood results,’ he says.

‘Good. When do you think you’ll kick me out?’

‘It could be quite a while given your conditions Mr Daly.’

‘What’re you going on about. And it’s Mick?’

‘Your leg ulcers have improved somewhat. But your sight is still concerning.’

‘I’m alright. No thanks to you lot,’ I say.

Tightening his face he ignores my comments and writes on the chart, ‘Nurse,’ he calls out the door. She arrives quickly and he hands her the papers and talks about me like I’m not in the room and twitches his nose and sniffs and turns and stares at the metal bed head his eyes fixed on the frame. He blinks three times slowly and faces up to the roof and twitches his jaw wide open, and I laugh, ‘Fuckin’ galah.’

‘I beg your pardon.’ ‘I said you’re a star.’

‘You’ll need to be more stable before you go anywhere, Mr Daly.’

‘So, when’s that?’

‘I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you.’

‘Maybe you’ll know something by then,’ I say.

The nurse checks the orange cord hanging out of my arm and adjusts the drip and the doctor leaves the room with my answer still in his twitchy calf face. I reach under the pillow and dig out a note and settle back and breathe in as best I can, ‘Bit serious that fella.’

‘The doctors are just doing their job. Do you want soup and a sandwich or soup and corn beef for lunch?’ the nurse says, smiling.

‘I want to be at home. Tell the fuckin galah to do that job. Corn beef.’

‘If you live alone who’ll look after you?’ she says, firmly.

‘I’ll get by,’ I say, shifting the note in my hand.

‘What’s that you’re holding there?’

‘A letter to my wife.’

‘You were married?’

‘Once. For a while.’

‘Where did you meet her?’

‘Halls Creek.’

‘I’ve never been that far across the North.’

‘I drove cattle over from Katherine twice a year.’

‘A stockman,’ she says.

‘Yep, most of my life.’

‘He drinks hard and rages often,’ the nurse adds, smiling.

‘Hmmm,’ I say.

‘Is there a particular place you like best?’

‘Any place by the river.’

‘Do you like fishing? My daughter loves barramundi.’

‘Ya gotta soak em’ in milk.’

‘May I?’ the nurse says gesturing for the note.

I unfold worn corners and hand her the letter and she holds it softly. My wife had the same slim fingers and wide smile and bright teeth. Her voice would calm any wild bull. Her shiny skin catches my eye and I see her again walking out in front and her head turns back towards me. She waves.

‘I like smooth hands,’ I say. ‘Pardon,’ she says.

‘Back then I didn’t care much about writing.’

‘But you wrote this one,’ she says, lightly holding the tattered pages up. ‘In 1966 by the river. Never sent it.’

I start to cough and the nurse leans me forward and thumps me in the middle of my back. I gasp for my air, chest tight and eyes beginning to water, I grab the sheet to feel alive.

‘This will help clear it,’ she adds hitting me hard three times. ‘Thanks,’ I whisper.

‘And that might be enough for today,’ she says, placing the stained note on the bedside table. I reach out, the pain kicks in and I can’t make the shift sideways so I lay back. I sleep. I dream.

When I wake the same nurse works at the end of my bed. She moves around the steel fiddling with the blankets sides and end. I wince as she helps me to sit up, ‘How is your pain Mr Mick?’

‘I think about other things,’ I say.

‘I’m afraid you don’t quite fit in this old rattler,’ she offers, trying to tuck the layers around my feet.

‘Rested on far worse, Sister,’ I say, shifting my head up slowly on the pillow.

‘Is that so?’

‘Most of the time we slept in the dirt.’

‘A lot of people couldn’t do that. Especially women,’ she says, handing me the letter.

‘Didn’t bother her.’

‘Love is pain for lesser minds.’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘She must have been pretty resilient.’

‘She was black,’ I say.

‘And wise I imagine.’

‘Yep. She was.’

‘People are funny about that.’

‘Not us,’ I say.

‘I see judgement every day.’

‘Don’t care much for bullshit and tears.’

‘In the loveless whites of their eyes,’ she says, firmly.

‘More than two-ways to do life,’ I say, coughing.

All knowing Entity

Listening. Barking owls call early morning away ending night and collective lizards welcome the rising gift of shifting eyes out of darkness and into slow down listening time. Connected, self-existent and wrapped fresh sky exploding over bushland and red dirt fills with dragon flies. Diving, up, down and over listening in time to the rising days music of native birds and grounded mammals and eyes. Watching soon-to-be burnt branches float majestically on open air buzzing, flitting, chasing to swallow midges slow to scurry. Northern ash covered mist flails, wandering across wide-eyed faces of blackened actor ant soldiers, queens and eggs marching into depths of wild ochre clay mounds. Rays of dustily days sway over ochre hillsides, wrapping watchers in earthen greetings of madness. Black cockatoos scratch and claw burnt day, sitting gently on rock switches out calling, gleaming and teaching. Young ones sitting in heated silence, waiting, listening and beginning to story a sky path. The young and brave dive deep, cloaking fellow inhabitants with black, white, yellow, and rich orange under-feather. The hunter, watching sits still and silent, listening and waiting to prey on sharp peaks of life’s screaming, rising up to shadow passers-by. Grounded in place, clay ancient dirt and ash wash over actors far away from the marching sounds of barking owls. The soon to be high in the sky North sun filters off hills bleeding. White filmed trees shined by burning, greying earth and ochre dust posts and bunches artfully on hot ancient rock filtered by midday sounds of buffalo snorting pods of water grass. Moaning cattle marching, twining, cross-over weaving parched ground celebrating suitcase free nostalgia punctured by natural law. Crosswise, emerald-green shadows boiling air, shimmering toward inland ponds of Northern mystery. Balanced by an inescapable sense of place and connection to distant travellers, protective, powerful and comforting. Melting blankets of clay pierce and sink into Northern grasses, frightening, disconnected, and mythical. And past denials bring to life light and grey and dark and black and red weaponry and voiced myth.