White Light by Mark O'Flynn

enough. They had all the footage they wanted. He could buy a new shed. All this while they were bumping out. The situation was what the Americans called a YP not an OP. That is, it was Your Problem not Our Problem. So then, he complained loudly that the CFA had not done their job properly and we ought to compensate him for the loss of his antique Harley-Davidson which had been inside the shed and was now underneath the smoking rubble. When no one showed any interest, he complained loudly about the sort of people the CFA had working for them. Cretins. Look at them. Some of them couldn’t even tie their own shoelaces. I told him that if he spoke about my son like that again, I’d drop him on his arse as soon as look at him. He did not respond, other than with the closure of his jaw. The film crew then stowed their cameras, tents and other gear into the vans and drove in convoy back up to the swishy Hydro Majestic hotel on the cliff top, leaving us to mop up any spot fires, although after Livingstone’s tirade no one was very enthusiastic. We all wanted to go home to bed.
    The next morning, not too early, Barry and I were back, wandering through the carnage of the landscape. Tendrils of smoke drifted in the air. It was like a bomb—well, yes, I suppose a bomb had hit it. It was surreal, like—well, yes, like being in a movie. I’m not saying this right. Barry was horrified; charred and blackened patches of earth, trees uprooted and flung aside, fences ruined, charcoal scars, the bush scorched to ash. On neighbouring properties, horses and sheep trembled up against the most distant gates. Cows did not come in for milking. It looked—well, yes, like a war zone, which I guess was what the producers were after. Veris-(I looked this up)-imilitude. It was very lifelike. The sad bit was—all that aftermath and not a camera in sight.
    While Livingstone was busy mourning the loss of his shed and composing letters of complaint, Barry found a splintered, devastated tree, laid flat like a twisted civilian. In the soft light of day, it was hard to see how Livingstone’s bottom paddock could even remotely resemble a desert filled with terrorists. More full of nervous kangaroos with the squitters than terrorists. A giant angophora had been felled by one of the blasts. Barry walked its length. I followed slowly, extinguishing coals and hot spots underneath with a burst of foam. I watched him peel a strip of torn bark from the trunk. Angophora sap is red, so it looked like he was peeling back flesh from a human wound. Under the bark was a small hollow where a dozen little bats huddled together in the smoke and steam. They shifted their wings as if shielding their faces from the light. Barry made some soft noises and nudged them with his finger. As we watched they flapped their leathery wings and rose together in a spiral, like stars around a cartoon character’s head. Barry watched them, willing them upwards, his neck craned back.
    The bats circled for a while about the spot where the giant tree had recently stood. But there was nothing. Just an absence. Just smoke over the paddocks, settling in the gully. The smell of petrol. Not even a sheep bleating. After a while, when they realised things were no longer in their proper place, the bats fluttered off silently over the paddocks towards the distant river, where there were a few tall trees still standing.
    Barry said: ‘Birds.’

BANJO
    T his story which I will write is not about a great man. But it will be about how he help me get over trying to top myself. This man’s name is called Banjo Paterson and I don’t see what is so funny about that. I was nothing but a young fellow aged 20 years of age when I met a woman whose name is Margaret. At that time I could not read and I also could not write. I don’t know why it seem no one ever tried to teach me before. But I was good with my hands. My Margaret had 4 children which were her