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1 " There’s a sad feeling in a place people have just walked out of and left behind. "
― Tim Winton , The Shepherd's Hut
2 " But I spose the women and the children was the closest. There’s something about the men just stops them being able. "
3 " And I wish I could say I stayed up late thinking about him but the truth is I was only awake a little while. I was so tired the swag felt like a sponge that soaked me up. I went to sleep like someone disappearing from the earth, like rain sopped into dust. "
4 " past is still in them. The force of events long gone, it lingers. These heavenly bodies and earthly forms, what are they but expressions of matters unfinished? Perhaps it’s not childish nonsense to see stones as men walking, to behold the moon and feel a tinge of dread. A stone is a fact, a consequence. And the moon, it marks a man’s days, does it not? Another month gone, a reminder every cycle that your moment is waning. No wonder it catches in a little fella’s chest when he sees it. Mebbe lunatics are men who’ve remembered they’re just men, not angels. "
5 " Anything with blood in it can probably go bad. Like meat. And it’s the blood that makes me worry. It carries things you don’t even know you got. "
6 " Shanksing across that country you stick out like a rat on a birthday cake. "
7 " out there houses are rare as rocking horse turds. "
8 " To live you gotta be hard, I know that. But nobody wants to be a deadset cunt. That’s just not fucking decent. "
9 " It’s a dangerous feeling getting noticed, being wanted. Getting seen deep and proper, it’s shit hot but terrible too. It’s like being took over. And your whole skin hurts like you suddenly grew two sizes in a minute. "
10 " Whatever it was went through me like a rifle rag. Come dawn, me date was so hot you could have lit a sparkplug off of it. "
11 " When I hit the bitumen and get that smooth grey rumble going under me everything’s hell different. Like I’m in a fresh new world all slick and flat and easy. Even with the engine working up a howl and the wind flogging in the window the sounds are real soft and pillowy. Civilized I mean. Like you’re still on the earth but you don’t hardly notice it anymore. And that’s hectic. You’d think I never got in a car before. But when you’ve hoofed it like a dirty goat all these weeks and months, when you’ve had the stony slow prickle-up hard country right in your face that long it’s bloody sudden. Some crazy shit, I tell you. Brings on this angel feeling. Like you’re just one arrow of light. "
12 " And the moon is only the moon. But they’re not empty things you know. The past is still in them. The force of events long gone, it lingers. These heavenly bodies and earthly forms, what are they but expressions of matters unfinished? …Mebbe lunatics are men who’ve remembered they’re just men, not angels. "
13 " Peace, that’s all I’m after. "
14 " the ute was casting a shadow that no light was ever gonna make. A shadow doesn’t search for a drain like that. Shadows don’t have blowflies drowning in them. "
15 " But I’m not such a good judge of monsters; I don’t know if the idea of a good death repels me now because it’s in itself repellent, or because I no longer have the courage to seek such a thing. "
16 " God is what you do, not what you believe in. "
17 " It’s just an old fella. Mostly bald. Walking dainty like his feet’s tender. And still singing. With some things in his hand. He puts them down on a drum. Sits on a milk crate in the shade. Pulls on a pair of gumboots. Then he snatches up the things from beside him and shuffles out in the sun and leans against the verandah post and I see him clear enough. Singlet. Baggy arse shorts. Thick specs. He’s short and thick this fella. Red in the face. And that stuff in his hand, it’s a knife and steel. He looks around, kind of slow and lazy. Stops singing then and just hums a minute while he hones the knife. And he knows how to freshen up a blade, that I can see straight up. "
18 " ...discretion will generally keep a fella safe. "
19 " elbows-out walk like a scorpion all burred up for a fight "
20 " Please God, whatever I was I am no longer….All is forgotten, if not forgiven—it could have come to that. But I don’t trust the thought. I don’t know if it’s because it would be too easy or too terrible to imagine no one cares anymore. "
