blisters and putrid flaking skin. The circle widened because he really stank. His lips were swollen and chafed. His eyes were squinting from his long exposure in the sea and from all of the smoke coming off the fires. Finn, who had been pushed to the back, even by the children, because he was the town’s idiot, felt angry about how he had been ignored. He decided he was not going to act like a mangy dog at the back. Why should he? He was the one who guarded the coastline, why should he be struggling to get a look-in? The Pricklebush mob, watching Finn, was coming alive for him, hmmm! hmmm-ing, We want the army , they jived, elbowing each other and grinning. Everyone wanted to call out his name – Finn! Finn! Call out to get the man in the uniform up front there – but they didn’t. People got to know their place.
Finn looked around at the noisy crowd. He was the only one among them who knew how to deal with the unexpected – refugees, boat people, any foreigners seeking illegal entry, how to apply mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to injured aliens. He was the only one who had a certificate of first-aid training for injuries received from being in a secret army camp. He pushed his way to the front, snatching the waterbag from a child. Yes, yes , Pricklebush cheered in their hearts for Finn. He sat down on the ground and held the half-filled bag to the man’s lips, that were cut like strands of cotton, and very slowly, tipped drops onto his tongue. After he considered that the man had drunk enough, he took small bits of mashed-up egg from a sandwich, which he placed in the man’s mouth. Everyone watched and waited, looking at their broken watches. From the corner of his eye, Finn saw Libby Valance pull Truthful aside to gee him up on how to interrogate his potential prisoner.
Truthful moved in excitedly, after all he was the cop, but reluctant anyhow, because he was thinking about how he was going to have to move all of the plants from the crowded jail. He stood with his shadow over the man’s face, and started to ask random questions, like, ‘What ship did you jump, Mister?’
‘What ship did you jump!’ Shocked, Finn repeated very slowly and loudly the question back into Truthful’s face. He muttered on and on about jumping ships, about the pointless need for that kind of realism, about silly people needing to clutch the same old straws in moments of spiritual elevation given by the Lord himself. He couldn’t stand another moment of Truthful trying to muscle in, and he shouted at him, ‘Stand out of the way, civilian.’ The crowd approved, stood well back, and let Finn take charge.
Finn gently asked the man again who he was, waited, then almost jumped out of his skin when the man smiled back and in a low voice said, he did not know who he was. He pointed weakly in the direction of the bushfires in the south, and towards the rain clouds far out at sea to the north that everyone was hoping would eventually bring in the rains to douse the fires. ‘I!’ was the only word he struggled to say into Finn’s ear now bent close to the man’s head. Those who heard, looked at each other. He got lured into a lost romance in the fish markets of Asia they whispered, You could tell by his accent . Finn smiled, ‘Of course,’ he kept saying for there was a communication, a very large outpouring of thoughts, flashing like torchlight into each other’s mind, a kind of osmosis that Finn understood perfectly. He suddenly remembered Saint Elias from the forgotten distant land of his own early childhood and exclaimed his annunciation out loud, ‘His name is Elias Smith.’
Oh! Light of day! It was alright to be the anointed one, the guardian, perhaps even the guardian angel of this melancholy coastal town of Desperance. Elias Smith had gotten up from the beach and survived. No matter it being a hot town with a freezer full of stored facts, local facts cherished as truths and permanently slung over all those stooped local
Finn looked around at the noisy crowd. He was the only one among them who knew how to deal with the unexpected – refugees, boat people, any foreigners seeking illegal entry, how to apply mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to injured aliens. He was the only one who had a certificate of first-aid training for injuries received from being in a secret army camp. He pushed his way to the front, snatching the waterbag from a child. Yes, yes , Pricklebush cheered in their hearts for Finn. He sat down on the ground and held the half-filled bag to the man’s lips, that were cut like strands of cotton, and very slowly, tipped drops onto his tongue. After he considered that the man had drunk enough, he took small bits of mashed-up egg from a sandwich, which he placed in the man’s mouth. Everyone watched and waited, looking at their broken watches. From the corner of his eye, Finn saw Libby Valance pull Truthful aside to gee him up on how to interrogate his potential prisoner.
Truthful moved in excitedly, after all he was the cop, but reluctant anyhow, because he was thinking about how he was going to have to move all of the plants from the crowded jail. He stood with his shadow over the man’s face, and started to ask random questions, like, ‘What ship did you jump, Mister?’
‘What ship did you jump!’ Shocked, Finn repeated very slowly and loudly the question back into Truthful’s face. He muttered on and on about jumping ships, about the pointless need for that kind of realism, about silly people needing to clutch the same old straws in moments of spiritual elevation given by the Lord himself. He couldn’t stand another moment of Truthful trying to muscle in, and he shouted at him, ‘Stand out of the way, civilian.’ The crowd approved, stood well back, and let Finn take charge.
Finn gently asked the man again who he was, waited, then almost jumped out of his skin when the man smiled back and in a low voice said, he did not know who he was. He pointed weakly in the direction of the bushfires in the south, and towards the rain clouds far out at sea to the north that everyone was hoping would eventually bring in the rains to douse the fires. ‘I!’ was the only word he struggled to say into Finn’s ear now bent close to the man’s head. Those who heard, looked at each other. He got lured into a lost romance in the fish markets of Asia they whispered, You could tell by his accent . Finn smiled, ‘Of course,’ he kept saying for there was a communication, a very large outpouring of thoughts, flashing like torchlight into each other’s mind, a kind of osmosis that Finn understood perfectly. He suddenly remembered Saint Elias from the forgotten distant land of his own early childhood and exclaimed his annunciation out loud, ‘His name is Elias Smith.’
Oh! Light of day! It was alright to be the anointed one, the guardian, perhaps even the guardian angel of this melancholy coastal town of Desperance. Elias Smith had gotten up from the beach and survived. No matter it being a hot town with a freezer full of stored facts, local facts cherished as truths and permanently slung over all those stooped local
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