Epilogue

By Ian C Smith:

Walking in early light, wetlands a short drive from home, where, like the rest of the world, all is quietly closing due to this ravening plague, part of my way parallel to a usually busy highway. I think of another road, traffic-choked, in my distant past. Figuring the year I last drove it those miles ago, I reach back, meet my younger self who casts several glances at my now thin hair, assessing the ruin.

His surprise at where I live now sweetened knowing how long he shall last, he thinks the nearby gas fields recently discovered that he read about must be the reason: employment. All he has known so far is an expectation of work. I paraphrase how, why, I landed here, both linked to my late education, love, work, try to explain about these three life effects felt by most. Stunned, even excited, by where his life leads, he now wants to hear of my health, journey. Happiness.

He knows about the Spanish ‘flu, read that, too, seems more fascinated than horror-stricken by brief news of today’s scourge, but he is young. His skin fascinates me. I tell him everybody would be relieved if this present canker’s naked statistics we absorb like poison, minus the personal misery, grief, and despair, doesn’t exceed that post-WW1 mortality rate. He mentions being concerned for nothing about the nukes, thinks self-isolation, overrun intensive-care facilities, the end of sport, non-electric entertainment, connection – this propels his interest into overdrive – sounds like a fantastic movie script. He loves dystopian themes. I tell him there are more coming. I know from inside knowledge he prefers damaging news told straight, yet want to protect him, protect hope, that lifeblood. Is he too young to be thinking of worldwide virulence?

I cross the highway listening for the odd vehicle, move deeper into the salutary peace of the natural world, but see few birds. Even they seem to have shut up shop, except for a lone pelican, its exquisite wake. Cheer up, my young companion urges, slowing for me, you did so much, although it sounds like you stuffed up a lot. Ah, the chirpy ignorance of youth. How should this end? Endings trouble me.

***

Ian C Smith’s work has been published in Antipodes, BBC Radio 4 Sounds, The Dalhousie Review, Griffith Review, San Pedro River Review, Southword, The Stony Thursday Book, & Two Thirds North. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island.

Sedgeland (rara avis in terris)

By Rebecca Dempsey: 

From a lookout above the marsh I had my Black Swan event. 
I was a child where life felt unchanging. 
It wasn’t the case. The wetland was seasonal, precarious, great birds pushed through phalaris. 
Amongst cutting grass and bulrushes, paired swans nested and fed. 
Random as dragonflies darting over the broken surface of brackish water, I was the outlier. 
Swamped in a sea of dead bracken, growth spirals stalled, perched upon a stranded dune and, undone by unknowing the why of me where everything had its place. 

Undirected, seated where an ancient ocean once lapped before withdrawing, nothing indicated my arrival to run grey grains of sand through my fingers, watching swamp harriers quartering the sky. 
White ibis, shelducks, the brolgas belonged, like the swans. 
Never inevitable, yet I was there with those fly ins, those long distance, faithful returnees from northern climes to the southern hemisphere.
However, I was wrong to believe we were similar: I was the rare bird. 
I was the one passing through. 

***

Rebecca Dempsey is a writer. She was born in Adelaide and grew up in rural South Australia. She lives in Melbourne, Victoria. Her poems, short stories and reviews have been published around the world in a variety of outlets. She can be found at WritingBec.com.