Through a darkening list

Through a darkening city. Head down, he’s thinking. Buy milk and bread. Hang out washing. Crossing a street against the red man, he's thinking. Put bins out. Pick up suit from drycleaners. Set video timer. A tram dings, he skips up the grey chipped gutter, out of the path of a surging car, back on to the footpath. He weaves through the homeward pedestrian traffic. A warm wind lifts his tie and lays it over his shoulder.

The buildings recognise him. The path he takes is worn smooth, he’s on rails, a passenger in his own body. There is no need to look left or right, no decisions to make. Only something very small within him glances sideways and registers the sports shop with the running shoes in the window. Claim healthcare rebate. Buy thank you card. Pay rent.

He smoulders.

The sky way above is still light and blue, wispy clouds drift like cameos before being closed out by the silhouettes of the buildings. It is the of the end of the week, a sad time for him. The melancholy of jump-starting his social life. Ring Louise. Repay loan from Dad. Merge supers. He walks like he drives, without interest in the vehicle that carries him. Without interest in any of the vehicles. The people at the tram stop are parked at random.. They need money in their meters.

A wave of air from a department store engulfs him and for a moment he remembers a holiday he once had, driving in the mountains with the valley floor far below and out to the side, hanging, wings poised, was a falcon, alone in space. For a moment his stride shortens but he catches himself and returns to the metronome rhythm. Get new glasses prescription. Return library book. Buy present for Nan. Make dental check-up appointment.

There is a movement up ahead, a large group of people. He is walking head down, focused on the ever-moving point in front of his feet. Renew ambulance membership. Get window repaired. Download anti-virus softeware. There is colour and music. They are chanting and beating drums. Email CV to Enterprise Industries. Backup list of contacts. Give bank details to HR department. The crowd is moving, there are adults and children. They are smiling and holding banners, waving placards. There are policemen on horses holding back the cars. Street lights come on. He stops at the edge.

Catch-up with Jennifer. Pay phone bill. Cut toe-nails. He sees the mass of people before him, is attracted momentarily by the life force in them, but something holds him back. Send job application. Print shortlist of houses. RSVP to Gemma. Borrow Neil Finn CD. Check lost property for bathers. Do twenty push-ups. The crowd swells. Someone has a trumpet. The drum beat catches him. His heart quickens. Eat more vegetables. No sugar on weeties. Get car serviced. Refill gas bottle. Babysit for Rob and Daphne. Photocopy uni transcripts. Pay car registration. Pay library fine. Recycle plastic bags. Take antibiotics. Vote. Run. Swim. Eat. Breathe.

He stands there in a trance, not really waiting, just held, frozen like a computer crashed in an endless loop.

A woman comes out of the crowd and smiles. “Do you want to carry a placard?” She holds it out, almost touching him. Can he feel her breathing? Her face, the smooth curves of her cheek, the soft, light hair on her uppper lip and the dimple at the point of her nose. Her mousey brown hair tied back in a pony tail, it makes him think of a little girl he once pushed off the swings in grade two. He liked her. She laughed with her eyes. She could be that girl; the way she’s standing there, smiling, drilling him with those eyes. He falls into them and large slabs of his self break off and fall away.

She shifts her weight and he imagines the shape of her hips behind the placard. The crowd moves like a strip of film behind her. The camera zooms in on her face again—there is a small scar below her left eye, and there are more freckles on the right side of her nose than the left, and her smile, it’s changing. She’s amused now, facinated by his frozen-ness, unaware though, that he is frightened. She sways to and fro with feigned impatience. He breathes in. Return video. Buy new batteries for remote control. Buy something. Do something else. She breaks them off him like long-held barnacles but he’s not sure who’s casting who adrift. There’s a lightness, like the pull of a helium balloon wanting to be let go. Buy new leads for retractable pencil. Recharge walkman batteries. Polish shoes. Iron shirts. Buy extension cord. His all-important lists, things to do, ticking them off one by one, his modus operandi, all the things he thought sustained him, were now held in suspension.

She lowers the placard and turns away. Hang on, he says—he wants her, it, wants to, belong, be part of her, it. He reaches out and she, smiling again, hands him the placard. He steps into flow and joins the river of people. She steps out and walks away.

His mind reels. He is deceived, abandoned. The girl walks away into the darkness. He stumbles, glances sideways but no one notices. He cannot believe that he’s inside the rally. He should not be here. This is not his place. He wants to escape. But something stops him. He looks out, to the stillness of the footpath where suits and skirts stand bemused like birds paused mid-air in their daily migration. I was just there, he thinks. I know what they’re thinking: Can we cross this river? Is it safe? Will the mob turn on us for not joining?

One man plunges in, head down, avoids eye contact, muttering as he dodges his way through.

The protesters are evenly spaced, walking peacefully, with confidence and purpose. Their faces are held high. The police stand on the sides in their fluoro-yellow vests and the drumbeats reverberate off the darkened walls of the buildings. From somewhere up ahead, the drone of a megaphone drifts back.

He looks at the placard he is holding. The cardboard is thick and on one side, painted in big green it says: JUSTICE FOR REFUGEES. Words flash and flit through his mind, he hears a news reader’s voice: boat people, queue-jumpers, mandatory detention, kids overboard. It’s a nursory rhyme, just sounds without meaning.

He looks out to the footpath again. Some look on with resentment, others with curiosity. Are they looking at me? Then he realises, they’re trying to read his placard. Gradually, he raises it higher. His stomach twists, he feels like a fraud. The blood rises to his face. But he calms himself, Come on, you can bluff your way through this. and raises the placard higher again. He tries to look relaxed and purposeful. The people read the placard and walk on.

The rally turns right. The crowd slows and at the inside of the corner the people squash together. His arm brushes against the bare shoulder of a girl. She has dreadlocks and is wearing a singlet and multi-coloured pants. He gives her a furtive smile and she grins back broadly. She is holding a broomstick and at the top there’s a diamond-shaped sign which simply says: FREEDOM. She reads his.

“Nice one,” she says.

“Oh no, I didn’t…I didn’t make this,” he stammers, “someone just gave it to me.”

“Same with this one,” she replies, “some guy didn’t want it. I hope he doesn’t need to sweep the floor.” She laughs at her own joke and he smiles along. But he’s thinking about the girl who dumped him with the placard, Maybe she just had to leave early.

The drums are beating loudly now, African rhythms infecting the crowd with a communal pulse. He finds himself stepping in time. The hairs stand up on the back of his arms and he can’t remember if he had anything planned for that night. A middle-aged man in a suit and a woman in a business jacket step from the footpath and join the rally. At first they appear out of step, but soon find the gentle flow. Another man carrying a skateboard with headphones on walks with a slouch. A group school girls start up a chant which ends up with them giggling uncontollably. An elderly man in a cardigan is rigid in his stride. A younger man carries a baby in a backpack. And two women push their children in prams.

The man sees all this and cannot stop his face breaking into a smile. The woman with dreadlocks next to him notices and bounces her sign with the music. He looks down embarassed, but laughs despite himself.

The traffic lights turn green. Behind the police horses not a car moves. The protesters, heady with the power of taking the whole road, continue on. The rally turns right again, into the heart of the city and then stops in an intersection. A woman steps onto a platform. The crowd pushes forward to hear. There is a presence about this woman. She wields the microphone like she might crush it in her fist. She begins to tell a story and a hush comes over the rally.

The man lowers his placard and listens.

“Three years ago our government told us that a group of refugee boat people threw their children overboard to force the navy to rescue them. The government lied. It never happened. The Prime Minister himself said they threw their children into the water. He lied. It never happened. Three years ago that government was elected because the people believed these lies.

“And now, three years later, we know the truth. We know the truth because one of the Prime Minister’s own advisors has come out and said that he told him, he told the Prime Minister, that there was no evidence that children were thrown overboard. The Prime Minister knew the truth. He knew that no children were thrown overboard. He knew the truth but he told a lie. He lied to us to create an environment of fear. He told a lie to get re-elected. The Prime Minister lied to us then and he’s lying to us now. Are we going to let him lie to us?”

The crowd roars, “No!”

“Are we going to let the Prime Minister use fear tactics to divide our country?”

“No!”

Something stirs within him. The drums have stopped but his face feels hot and there’s a buzzing in his head.

“The Prime Minister lied to us in the past and he’s lying to us now. He thinks he can get away with it again. Are we going to let him get away with it again?”

Amidst the thunderous response he hears, very closeby, someone join in and growl, “No.” And he realises it’s him. But he doesn’t care, he’s transfixed.

“Are we fed up with the government telling us lies?”

“Yes!” he joins in louder this time, feeling the strength from the crowd. He is one with them. The crowd is rising to hysteria. He joins in, The woman raises herself up. He is spellbound like a child at storytime. She lowers her voice, the calm before the storm.

“But the government will not continue lying to us…” she pauses menacingly. A tremor ripples through the crowd.

“…Because in two weeks’ time, on election day, we will decide! We will decide!

The crowd completely loses it, an eruption of clapping and yelling. Fists pump the air. Protesters howl like animals. Giant beach balls bounce across the carpet of noise. The rally has found new vigour. The a friendly jostling journey is renewed.

His eyes are wide like an animal, he is shaking. The placard is high in the air. There is a surging within him. He pushes deeper, towards the drums. Looks around, sees people outside the rally, still plodding home, still looking bemused. He holds his placard high, defiantly returning their gaze. The drumbeat enters him, he sways his shoulders, steps low, with the beat. The drummer, next to him now, urges him on. The city swallows him, the lines hanging low over the cold grey of the tracks (where are the trams?), the giant tv screen blinks an advertisement no-one sees, the red man changes to green, a police horse shuffles on the spot, a chocolate bar wrapper in the curve of the gutter, the lines on the road, an arrow pointing which way to go. He sees it all like a foreigner in a strange new city. Where am I? he wonders, Have I been here before?

His mind fizzes, sparks and crackles. Download toe nails. Hang out library book. Whole lists and schedules, carefully prioritised, simply break apart in his mind. Check lost property for Dad. Twenty push-ups on Gemma. Recycle Nan. Unpack Rob. Refill Daphne. Yearly planners and calendars, highlighted, dated, signed with explanatory notes crumble. Recharge housemate. Get Mum repaired. Email analysis of Grandpa. His smooth layer of greyness, holding things down, pushing people away, falls into disrepair. And through the cracks something new grows.