You show up in Parnawarratji and try to arrange the single loop of sealed road, the vacant red dirt lots and the dotted housing with massive metal cages on the front, into a ‘community’ in your mind. It isn’t what you were expecting, but then, you didn’t know what to expect. Certainly not so much sky, arcing over the horizon, the line blurred by a hazy fringe of spinifex grass.
His face was trapped in the ceiling tiles above my computer. I stared at the roof, feeling the bile rise up in my throat. I hadn’t noticed it at first. The line on the bottom could have been anyone’s smile, and the two black dots among the white plaster could have been anyone’s eyes. But after he had leaned over my desk the first time, shouting at me, I stared at the ceiling tile straight afterwards and ever since pictured the outline of his face every time I looked at it.
The maps lied. Distances between towns had to be longer. I drove the minivan dangling an elbow out a window. A bone in my neck grated as I changed gears. Wind cut bluntly over an arm. After long trips skin mottled red. Land lay flat, stretching into haze smeared by dust storms two days ago. My shoulders ached slightly from that full nelson Eric had me in yesterday.
If you’re a fan of Young Adult novels (or have ever been on YouTube) then you’ve most likely heard of author John Green. In recent times there has been a lot of debate surrounding John Green’s representation of women and whether it is positive or negative. As his target audience is generally young adults and teens, the way he portrays women is incredibly important as it creates a mould for how young girls may believe they are perceived by others.
There are scratch marks on his arms that don’t belong to me. Bite marks and bruises, old and new, on his chest and shoulders that don’t match my dental records. There’s mud between his toes from another adventure and I can see the pressure marks from his heavy backpack on his chest. There’s a festival wristband around his arm, but it’s not the same as the one around mine.
Out here in Blacktown, four dollars sixty and sixteen stops from Kings Cross, naked and sore I take an OxyContin out of a box on my bedside table and I hold it between my fingers.
I say ten milligrams.
His face was trapped in the ceiling tiles above my computer. I stared at the roof, feeling the bile rise up in my throat. I hadn’t noticed it at first. The line on the bottom could have been anyone’s smile, and the two black dots among the white plaster could have been anyone’s eyes. But after he had leaned over my desk the first time, shouting at me, I stared at the ceiling tile straight afterwards and ever since pictured the outline of his face every time I looked at it.
You show up in Parnawarratji and try to arrange the single loop of sealed road, the vacant red dirt lots and the dotted housing with massive metal cages on the front, into a ‘community’ in your mind. It isn’t what you were expecting, but then, you didn’t know what to expect. Certainly not so much sky, arcing over the horizon, the line blurred by a hazy fringe of spinifex grass.
