The Road Monologue

There is something unique about the way children are capable of love. It’s never measured or compared; it has no obligations or expectations and isn’t tainted by materialism or the delusions of grandeur that we attach to adult relationships. That sort of raw admiration comes from an innocent place where we haven’t yet learned to erect emotional barriers. It is a blissful ignorance, unaware of the pain that disappointment or rejection can bring. It’s sad that the hard knocks of life beat it out of us. Coal trucks come in many forms and they leave scars that toughen us, making us cynical and overly cautious. Experience teaches that Death has many faces too, and we experience many losses in a lifetime, but we never quite forget the things

My bags were packed, his jacket among my things, and I was on my way to the proverbial greener grass in search of a more glamorous life. Way above sea level, jet setting off to new beginnings, I felt the nasty slash as familiarity was ripped from me. Like an orphan watching out the back window of a moving car, tears streaked down my face for everything that I was leaving behind. My heart broke and I cried for one last walk with my brother in the mist. In a sombre state I imagined how Finn would end up. With movie star good looks he was likely to grow up to be world famous. At some point he was bound to look in a mirror and realise what kind of cloth he was cut from and vanity would set in. I imagined him as a playboy with fast cars, faster girls and complete memory loss if he ever crossed paths with me again. It became apparent that the voices inside my head were not my friends. My new life was like a blank piece of paper to an author with writers block. The ideas were there in full colour until I held the

From the farmlands to the coast, I’d traded the moronic numb nuts for sun kissed surfers and beach bunnies. There I was, a country bumpkin, lost as a fart in a monsoon. But from time to time I’d glimpse a certain black hoodie in my wardrobe and gentle voices from the past would reach out to remind me who I was. Because we were the seniors at school we were allowed to have bikes to get around on our own. I was lucky enough to get one. It takes a while to get into the rhythm of a new life but I soon found some new friends. None of us really fitted in and I suppose that it was our difference that made us so much alike. A few of us had bikes and so a permanent bond was formed between rides to school, trips to the beach, and serious teenage conversations about saving the world. Once you get used to a place you begin to see the cracks and the little coastal town turned out to have its own quirks that weren’t all that different from my home town. As it turned out, booze was a universal energy and wife beating wasn’t confined to the wrong side of the railway line. This made me take a closer look at society’s class structure and behold, it had never occurred to me but, mental and financial poverty was everywhere and it had nothing to do with