Marrawarra

The old people used to say that the river went up and down faster than a hooker’s knickers.

   They’d watch the storm clouds roll around in the sky, grab their deck chairs and stroll over to the banks of the river to watch the spectacle, with beer cans in their hand. True to form the river, fifteen metres below down a steep bank, would grow from a placid collection of pools of still water to a fat mass of brown water, swirling and foaming and thrashing just below the rocky edge they were sitting on. Only to drop back down again to its previous level within an hour, when the discharge from the storm, sometimes far upstream, had washed through, leaving it more or less exactly like it had been before.

   They’d finish their beers and their chats, pack up their deckchairs, and amble casually back to their houses, content with an afternoon’s entertainment.

   This time they ran for their lives. Deckchairs and beer cans alike were abandoned in the mad rush, and got smashed into oblivion by the wall of water.

   They used to say that the river went up and down faster than a hooker’s knickers.

 

The girl rolled carefully away and pulled her knickers back up again. It was dark in the cave. By the faint light of the stars and the moon outside she could make out the form next to her. It rose and fell steadily with its breathing, occasionally punctuated by a snort and a fart. She pushed up from her hands, brought her feet forwards and slowly got to her feet. Stopped still for a moment, her eyes on the sleeping form. No sign of consciousness. Good. She stooped down, retrieved her bag, and edged her way forward with her bare feet, toes in the sand, cool beneath her soles. Towards the back of the cave, where she knew they were kept. She’d spied them out of the corner of her eyes, before. She tiptoed over till she stopped in front of them. There were three of them. Oval, green, shimmering in the starlight, about the size of two hands held together. She bent forward and picked up one of them. Rock hard and solid, it felt warm to the touch, and vibrated slightly. She slipped it into her bag, and in quick succession scooped up the other two and added them to the first one, taking care not to let them make any clanging noises as they touched.

   With slow, deliberate movements she sneaked past the sleeping form on the ground towards the cave entrance. There was a harumph, and the breathing stopped. She froze and looked over her shoulder. The shape shifted position a little. There was a ripple, and a beam of stray starlight glanced off a scale. It flashed momentarily like a dragonfly’s wings in the sun, with all the colours of the rainbow, then it dulled back down as the shape settled again, below the beam of starlight. The breathing resumed, steady and deep.

   She turned and fled.

   Outside her feet found the track she’d climbed up on the day before. The rocks she’d scrambled over, the thorny bushes she’d pushed through, the low hanging branches she’d pulled up on. She swung down from one, landed light on her feet, and turned away from the rock face. Stopped for a second to readjust the straps on her bag, securing it more tightly to her back.

   Then she ran. Downhill, zigzagging between trees, swishing through the long grass as she got lower down, her feet feeling rocks and shale turn to pebbles and sand. Hurdling over falling logs, ducking under vines, till she reached the wallaby track that wound along the river bank. She turned left, facing downstream, and sped up.

   Far below, in the river bed, the pools of water lay quiet, dark and inscrutable.

   A chill on the air heralded the morning.

   Behind her the sky over the eastern horizon started fading from black to indigo.

 

The first rays of the sun penetrated the cave. They fell on footprints in the sand at the cave entrance, then crawled further inside, travelling up the sleeping form till they reached its head, and fell on its eyelids. An opportunistic fly, up bright and early and rubbing its legs in glee at the prospect of a great day of buzzing around things and generically annoying everything, followed the beam of light, and landed on one of the eyes.

   It twitched.

   ‘Hmmpf.’ A head shook.

   The fly took off into the air, spun around and this time landed on the nose.

   ‘Hur ... hur ... harumpf!’ The nose sneezed.

   The eyes flew wide open.

   They were yellow, and had vertical black pupils.

   The fly took one look at them, performed a 360 death-defying somersault in mid-air, and bolted in the direction of the cave mouth at supersonic speed.

   Not fast enough.

   A long tongue lashed out, red and moist, snatched it out of the air and flicked it into a mouth. The tongue was forked.

   The form rose up from the cave floor. A big triangular head lifted up, wiggling from side to side, smelling the air. A body uncoiled. And uncoiled more. And then some more. Long, lithe, fluid, it stretched out towards the cave ceiling. It rolled its shoulders back, easing the stiffness of the night out of them. Sunlight glittered off a skin of scales, reaching from the head all the way down the length of the body. Colours lit up, reflecting off shiny surfaces: red, orange, yellow. Green, blue. Indigo. There, at the edge of vision, violet.

   The head yawned, and shook with feeling. It looked down at two empty bottles lying in the sand.

   ‘Bloody hell,’ it grumbled, ‘what a night.’ It shuddered. ‘I’ll never drink again.’ A grin snaked across its face. ‘Until next time of course.’

   Alcoholic fog lifted, and recollection dawned on him. ‘Oh yeah, that chick ...’ His eyes drifted over the cave floor, taking in the shape of her body in the sand. ‘Yeah, she was all right. Gone of course, now, bailed out ...’ He shrugged in a serpentine fashion. ‘Ah well, them’s the brakes. No surprise there.’ He wiggled his head from side to side a bit more. It hurt. He winced.

   His eyes fell on the footsteps leading out of the cave, where his female companion for the night had sneaked out. Absentmindedly he followed the tracks around the sand of the cave floor. Strange. There was something unusual there. It was by no means uncommon for him to find nothing but footprints the morning after, as the only physical reminder of his visitors. He couldn’t blame them. He could vividly imagine their lack of desire to see him in daylight. But usually their tracks made a beeline for the cave entrance, and disappeared through it. They didn’t usually criss-cross over the floor, towards the back ...

   Towards the back? Towards the back of his cave?

   He spun around, scales flashing. In one bound he was at the back wall, where he kept his ...

   Noooooo!

   Noooooo!

   They were gone!

   He tilted his head back and howled.

 

The sound bounced off the cliff faces, rolled over the treetops, and reverberated through the river bed.

 

Miles away it reached the girl, running full pelt down the track beside the river. She put her head down, stretched her legs out further, pumped her arms up and down manically, and flew on. If she made it to town, she’d get a fantastic price for those things in her bag. If she made it.

 

Across the river, on the other bank, smoke curled up from a dying camp fire in thin wisps. A bloke shot bolt upright from where he’d been sleeping on the ground.

   ‘Did you hear that?’ He turned to his mate, fast asleep next to him.

   ‘Rrrrr.’

   ‘Oi!’ He elbowed his mate in the ribs. The snoring cut out.

   ‘Bloody he ... what?’ A sleepy head opened one eye.

   ‘Did you hear that?’ the first bloke repeated.

   ‘Hear what? I was asleep!’

   ‘There was ... a noise. A really loud noise. Like a howl of a dingo, but much louder.’ He shivered. ‘Like ... a howling thunder.’

   The second bloke shook his head and blinked. ‘You’re imagining it, mate,’ he growled. ‘You wake me up for bullshit like tha...’

   A blood-curdling howl rent the air. It echoed through the bush, bounced off the trees and took on a life of its own.

 

Scales rippling and flashing in the sun with all the colours of the rainbow, Snakeman climbed up the cliff face above his cave. He grabbed roots with his hands and pulled up, found cracks in the rocks with his feet and pushed, coiled his tail into crevices and propelled himself forward. His fingers curled around a rock ledge, his nails dug holes into the stone, and he heaved himself over it. Stood up on top of the mountain, and turned around. The whole country lay wide open in front of him. Below him was the red sandstone of his escarpment. Stretching out to the horizon in every direction was an ocean of treetops, green under the blue sky, lifting and falling here and there with elevations in terrain. In the middle lay the river, wide, deep, steep, twisting and turning its way through the country. Placid and still in the morning sun.

   He screwed his eyes into a squint and peered downstream. There was movement. Under the trees, on the bank of the river. There, a hint of skin, ducking and weaving underneath the branches. Breaking cover for a second to traverse an open area, disappearing back under the green. And heading downstream, inexorably.

   That was her, guaranteed. He knew where she was running to, and he knew what would happen if she made it there. He also knew that he had zero chance of catching up with her.

   He threw his head back and howled again.

 

Downstream across on the other side the two blokes froze. The one who’d woken up first rolled his shoulders and sucked in his breath sharply.

   ‘I don’t like this, Joe,’ he said to his mate. He shook his head. ‘We need to get outta here.’

   Joe sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘All right, fair enough,’ he grunted. ‘But first we need to have breakfast. Pass me that.’ He pointed to a bottle lying on the ground at their feet.

   Jack reached over, picked it up, unscrewed the top, took a long swig and passed it to the other bloke. Joe put it to his mouth, closed his eyes and tipped it back.

 

Snakeman’s howl roared up to the sky, into the high and rarefied air of the troposphere. It reached two fluffy white clouds, floating around up there in a relaxed fashion, minding their own business.

   Cloud 9: ‘Did you hear that?’

   Cloud 10: ‘Yeah.’ He craned his neck and looked down. ‘It’s that snake-bloke.’

   Cloud 9: ‘What does he want now?’

   Cloud 10: ‘Dunno.’ He shrugged with studied nonchalance. ‘I think he wants to talk to us.’

   Cloud 9: ‘You wanna go see him?’

   Cloud 10: ‘Hang on, let me check my diary, see if I’ve got anything on.’ He pretended to check his diary. ‘Sure, why not.’

   Snakeman howled again, every fibre of his body twitching and straining. It echoed over the hills, cliffs and river valley.

   ‘All right, all right, no need to carry on,’ snapped Cloud 9. ‘We’re here. What do you want?’

   Snakeman stretched himself out to his full length and stabbed his head high into the air above his mountain top, until he was face to face with the two clouds.

   ‘It’s that chick,’ he howled, ‘she’s stolen them!’

   ‘What chick?’ said 10, bemused. ‘What are you going on about’

   ‘That chick!’ Snakeman looked sheepish, no mean feat for a creature made of snakeskin in all the colours of the rainbow. ‘She uh ... uhum ... spent the night.’ He coughed in his fist. ‘That one there!’ He pointed over his shoulder at the shape in the far distance, running down the river valley.

   ‘Really. Lucky you. So what?’

   ‘She stole them! Snakeman shouted.

   9 and 10 exchanged a glance. 10 rolled his eyes and blew air out of his cheeks with a whistling sound. A gust of wind swept over the treetops down below.

   ‘All right,’ said 9 diplomatically. ‘Calm down. What did she steal?’

   ‘My eggs! That bitch has stolen my eggs!’ Snakeman screamed.

   ‘Right.’ 9 looked over to 10. 10 examined his fingertips. ‘Did you leave them lying around again?’

   ‘Uh ... yeah ...’ The volume of Snakeman’s voice dropped a bit. Then he rallied. ‘But that’s not the point,’ he yelled. ‘They’re mine! I want them back!’

   ‘Right,’ 9 said again. He raised his eyebrows. Layers of top cloud bumped over each other in slow motion. ‘And what do you want us to do about it?’

   Snakeman clenched his jaw. ‘Make it rain.’

   ‘What?’

   ‘Make it rain. Please.’ He gnashed his fangs.

   9 looked across to 10. 10 shook his head slowly, and spoke for the first time. ‘No mate, we can’t do that. It’s not the right time, see.’ He checked his watch. ‘There’s no rain scheduled for another, oh, three weeks at least.’ He sniffed. ‘We can’t go around interfering with the schedule now, can we. We’d never hear the end of it.’

   Snakeman pulled himself up to his considerable height. ‘Make it rain!’ he growled.

   ‘No. Sorry, can’t do.’ 9 looked down his nose and smirked.

   Snakeman squared his shoulders and rolled his head from side to side. Vertebrae creaked ominously. ‘Make it rain!’

   ‘No.’ 9 gave a tight smile, exposing fluffy white teeth. ‘Get stuffed.’

   ‘Make it rain, you bastards!’ Snakeman roared.

   ‘No. Piss o...’ He didn’t get to finish his sentence.

    Snakeman reared up on his legs, balancing on his tail, and reached up high above him. He grabbed the two clouds by the scruff of their necks, and smashed their heads together. Lightning arced down towards the earth, and a peal of thunder burst forth.

   ‘Maaaake ... iiiiit ... raaaaaaaaaain!’ He spread his arms out wide and brought them together at the speed of light. The two clouds collided with atomic force. Forked lightning flashed across the sky, and eardrum-shattering thunder rumbled across the valley like an avalanche. The clouds exploded, a fleeting expression of stunned surprise crossing their faces, before they disintegrated into a million particles of water.

   Rain poured down from the sky vertically.

   It hit the red stone escarpment, bounced off the rocks, formed rivulets in gullies, rushed downhill in creeklines of dirt, coagulated in streams of mud, tumbled over itself in waves of foam, gathered in airborne waterfalls, launched itself over the banks of the river, and poured into the bed of dark pools. It swept them up, collected them in its embrace, absorbed them into its mass, and hurtled downstream, ripping down the river banks, and pushing them apart.

 

‘Thunder!’ Joe looked up. ‘Blue sky? Thunder in blue bloody sky? How do you reckon that?’

   ‘Dunno. Pass me that bottle.’ Jack took a deep draught. ‘Might be it’s gonna rain, mebbe, ey.’ He belched.

   ‘Bullshit. Look at that sky. Not a cloud within cooee.’ Joe made a dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘Nah. No way.’ He took the bottle back from Jack. ‘Let’s keep going.’

   They stumbled onwards, swaying from side to side. Occasionally they bounced off tree trunks.

 

The Egg Thief girl stole a quick look over her shoulder. Behind her the edge of the sky faded from blue to grey and brown. A wind appeared from out of nowhere and started tugging at her sleeves. That bastard. She should have known.

   Lightning screamed across the sky, and thunder ripped the air to pieces.

   She put her chin down and tripled her efforts. Her feet hammered down on the track, tapping out a tattoo in time with the thunder.

 

The sky was black with clouds, the rain formed a vertical curtain, rattling down on the ground, drilling holes in the sand, churning up mud, hitting at supersonic speed. No ordinary monsoon had ever slammed this hard, no cyclone could dream of this power.

   The river bed filled up with a torrent of brown water, racing downstream, uprooting trees left and right, dragging them along, dislodging rocks from the side, hurtling them through the air. Peaceful small islands of shrubs and bushes, that had survived a hundred floods before, got bowled over and torn to pieces, disappearing beneath the boiling surface. Standing waves rose up, exploded in showers of lethal darts, and collapsed.

 

Egg Thief’s eyes were wide open now, bulging out of their sockets. She panted heavily, heaved, fought for breath. If she could make it to the bridge near town and cross over, she knew she’d be able to get to higher ground on the other side and get out of range of the water chasing her. She could see the bridge looming up in the distance, partly blocked by the last bend in the river.

   Beside her the water rose. And rose. A metre below the bank. Half a metre below the bank. 25 centimetres below the bank.

   She ran at world-record-breaking speed, her feet a blur, barely touching the ground.

   She rounded the last bend. The bridge appeared in front of her.

   50 metres.

   30 metres.

    She was going to make it.

   The first drops splashed over the side, and hit her calf muscles.

   20 metres.

   A wave broke over the edge, and lapped around her ankles. The water sucked away temporarily, flattening the grass.

   10 metres.

   A second wave crashed over the ground, higher now, and stretched tentacles out towards her. Wrapped them around her thigh, circled around her waist, seized her by the neck.

   5 metres to go.

   It curled in on itself and dragged her off into the river.

   She screamed, her mouth wide open. Till it disappeared below the surface, and filled up with water. Eddies swirled where her head had been.

   The river raged onwards, unstoppable.

   And smashed into the bridge.

   The bridge had stood there for a long time. It had done its job dutifully, allowing traffic to pass across its back, the rumbling road trains carrying essentials far into the back regions, the only link between this remote area and the rest of the country.

   It was tired.

   Its pillars creaked and swayed in the wind, and every monsoon season’s cyclones carved additional cracks into its bones. Its tarmac skin was rippled, patched and broken, and its concrete ribs were crumbling. Shafts of reo stuck out here and there, rusting quietly and unobtrusively.

   It never stood a chance.

   The wall of water hit it like an earthquake. The bridge shuddered, shook, swung from side to side. The current lashed around its pylons, undermined its footings, sucked the soil out from underneath them, snapped reinforcing steel bars like dry twigs, twisted concrete beams, wrenched its life away from it. Pulverised its internal structure.

   The bridge groaned. Here, at last, was well-deserved retirement. This wasn’t quite like it had imagined it would go, but it would have to do.

   The pillars crumbled. The deck collapsed. The middle section sagged down into a vee. The river-left side contorted into a corkscrew, tore half of the bank off with it, and fell into the water. Cracks flew up the deck until they reached a critical point, spread sideways and burst open. A quarter of the bridge was severed, and, in slow motion, crashed down, a fountain of boiling water rocketing sky-high.

   The wreckage got skulldragged away by the current, and canonballed downstream, obliterating everything in its path, a giant water-borne wreckingball.

 

The old people fled out of their deckchairs, abandoning their cans of beer, their conversation, their friends and their neighbours, ran for their lives to the high ground, and climbed up on the roofs of their houses.

 

Jack and Joe pulled up at the other side of the bridge. Their mouths hung wide open. They stared at the brown stream flying past faster than a galloping horse. Joe fumbled with the bottle and drained the dregs of it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and tossed it over his shoulder. Jack eyed it wistfully. They were out of booze.

   After a while Joe shut his mouth. The flies were getting in. ‘Well, bugger me,’ he grunted.

   ‘Yeah, this is not a good look.’ Jack shook his head.

   ‘So now what? We got nothing left to drink.’ Joe squinted and turned his head on the side. ‘And the pub’s on the other side.’

   Jack scratched the stubble on his chin. It made a sound like two possums fornicating. ‘Yeah, we’re not gonna get there now. Bugger.’

   Joe narrowed his eyes more and turned to his mate. ‘Oh yeah? Says who?’

   Jack stared at the other bloke. He gestured vaguely in the direction of the roaring water. In front of them a 20 metre tall tree got snatched out of the soil, spun roots-over-crown headlong into the water, and disappeared in the blink of an eye. ‘Says all that over there, mate. What does it look like? What are you gonna do, swim across? Hahah ...’ He faltered when he saw the look on Joe’s face.

   Joe sucked in a deep breath and puffed his chest out. He glared at Jack. “Hey mate, I’ll have you know that I was the fastest and strongest swimmer in the under-fifteens in my time.’

   Jack rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, and that was twenty years ago, in a one-horse town where there were three people who could swim, and one of them only had one arm, and the other one was a five-year old.’

   Joe screwed up his face and stared hard at his mate. ‘What, you’re saying I can’t swim?’

   ‘No, I'm not saying tha...’

   ‘You think I can’t swim across a little bit of floodwater like that?’ Joe waved his arm expansively in the direction of the river. A log drifted by, with a crocodile clinging to it, looking distressed.

   ‘Of course you can’t, it’s a flood,’ Jack snapped. ‘Are you out of your mind? Look at it!’

   A standing wave rose up and shattered against one of the bridge pylons still standing. The bridge trembled.

   ‘Oh yeah? Oh yeah?’ Joe’s voice rose. ‘Yeah, you reckon, mate? Hah! Well, watch this, you loser.’ He ripped off his shirt and dropped his dacks. He strode forwards in his undies to the edge of the bridge, staggering from side to side. ‘Look and learn, you pussy!’ And he climbed up on the railing, balanced precariously for a few seconds, took a deep breath, windmilled his arms around, and dived headfirst into the floodwater, brown, turbulent, surging.

   It closed above his head.

   Jack stood and stared, gobsmacked, eyes popping out of his head. His heart racing he sprinted over to the railing and stuck his head over the side. He looked down.

   ‘Joe! Hey, Joe! Joey!’

   No sign of Joe. The only thing breaking the surface was a tractor tyre, barrelling downstream, turning cartwheels.

   ‘Holy hell, you stupid bastard ... help! Heeeelp!’ He screamed at the top of his voice. The sound got sucked into the roar of the water, and fell flat. His head spun around from side to side. No one around anywhere. Bloody hell. This wasn’t happening.

   Jack tore his shirt off, dragged his pants down, bolted to the railing, scrambled up and over it, and jumped, wisely, feet first.

   He disappeared beneath the surface, then popped back up again thirty metres downstream. He flailed his arms around frantically, trying to make headway against the current, to no avail. It was like trying to stop the wind from blowing, or the sun from rising. A whole tree drifted past him. He struck out with all his might, and managed to get one arm around it. The banks flashed past like a train in a nightmare.

   A sudden jolt rattled his brain in his skull, and shook loose his teeth. Casting around wildly he saw that his log had smashed into another tree, still standing on what was left of an island in midstream. With a split decision he let go of the floating tree and lunged out at the standing one. Not a moment too soon: as soon as he got his arms around the new tree, his log groaned, folded sideways, broke in half and careered off down-current in two pieces. He pulled himself up, higher out of the water. Looked around. Straight into the yellow eye of a confused crocodile, being swept downstream tail first. Like lightning he scrambled up as high as he could, wrapped his arms around the top part of the tree, and started sobbing, unable to stop himself.

 

The storm raged all day and all night.

   By morning it was spent, and bits of blue sky broke out here and there. The rising sun revealed a countryside turned into an inland sea, with water as far as the eye could see, sprinkled at regular intervals with tree tops, and roofs of houses with people sitting on them, clinging to each other. The bridge was half gone, and the remaining half listed downstream in an precarious manner. It swayed and rocked every time a piece of debris hit a pillar.

 

Jack made it through the night. When the rains stopped townspeople came out in boats with motors powerful enough to cope with the current, and plucked him out of his tree.

   Helicopters appeared on the horizon, carrying help and emergency supplies. Jack was bundled into one of them, and flown to a hospital in a big city far away as a matter of urgency. Doctors pumped his stomach and drained his system, ran their checks, and found that his system contained, besides prodigious amounts of river water and a small baby crocodile, enough alcohol to kill a horse three times. Amazement was expressed in a cautious way, congratulations were extended very carefully, and junior medical staff scurried off to write career-making papers on the phenomenal adaptability of the human body, and its remarkable ability to survive against overwhelming odds. A major liquor store chain approached Jack, asking to buy his story, in order to use it in a brand new advertising campaign aimed at proclaiming the health and survival benefits of alcohol, but this was quietly though firmly oppressed by overworked and underpaid hospital staff, who figured they had quite enough on their plate to be getting on with as it was, thanks very much.

 

Eventually the water slowed down and stopped, and, before long, dropped off. The river retreated within its banks, grumbling and complaining about the good old days, and whatever happened to a free world, but it did it anyway.

 

Three days later.

 

Two blokes, two women and three kids made their way down the river bank, shuffling through sand, ploughing through mud, clambering over driftwood logs, clumps of grass and sods, and bits of steel and concrete. Two dead cows lay around stinking a bit further away on the sand bank, three mangled wallaby corpses not far from them. The people moved upwind, and while the women built a small fire in the sand the blokes and the kids wandered down to the water’s edge with fishing lines and a cast net.

   The kids played in the shallows, running up and down. screeching and splashing each other.

   The blokes waded out into the river, now washing placidly around the lower reaches of the sand bank, gathered up their cast net, draped it over their shoulders and threw it out in front of them. They reeled it in and tipped the little silvery fingerlings in it into a bucket of water, to be used as live bait on their lines soon.

   ‘Look at old Marrawarra now, ey,’ one of them nodded at the river, still, peaceful and unfathomable. ‘You’d never know, would you.’

   His mate nodded. ‘Yeah, and how about Jack, ey. That’s unbelievable. Lucky bastard, to get away with that.’

   The other bloke shook his head slowly. ‘Yeah. And what about cousin Joe. You reckon we’ll ever see him again, that one?’

   The first bloke shook his head as well, tips of his mouth turned down, his eyes hooded. ‘Nah, I don’t reckon we’ll see old Joey again, him that one. He’s a goner, for sure.’ He sighed. ‘Poor bastard. Our nan’s gutted, she’ll never get over it.’ A wry grin spread over his face. ‘He still owed her fiftty bucks.’

   The other bloke grunted consent. Something else had caught his attention. The net had snagged.

   ‘Jonno, come here, give us a hand, the net is stuck.’ He frowned. “Either that or there’s something big in there.’ His eyebrows flew up in anticipation. ‘Could be a shark, mebbe, ey. Good tucker.’

   Jonno leaned into his mate, put his hands on the rope of the net, and heaved. The net came closer. A large object was bobbing just beneath the water.

 

The kids had wondered off downstream, following their noses, sussing things out, seeing what they could find.

   ‘Ey, look! There!’ One of them pointed at something a bit further over.

   They ran. A big tree had had its roots exposed by the flood, the waters washing away the soil around it. A mass of tangled leaves, grass, vines and generic flotsam and jetsam had built up in the new hollow. The kids dropped to their knees and started scrabbling away at the mess with their fingers.

   ‘Look there, see! There’s a shiny thing!’

   ‘Mebbe we find some treasure, ey boys!’ another one said. They laughed. Their hands tugged, pulled and dragged the debris out of the way until, there lying before them in the sand, were three large oval objects. They were green, and seemed to shimmer in the sunlight.

   The boys stood up and took a step back, their mouths wide open. One of them crouched down, slowly extended a hand, and laid it on one of the green things.

   His head swivelled around to his mates, eyes wide. ‘It’s warm! he gasped.

   ‘Mum!’ They waved at one of the women, ambling towards them. ‘Mum, come and have a look at what we have found!’

   The woman arrived. She took one look at the green things and jumped back like she’d been bitten by a snake, her eyes wide.

   ‘Get away from there!’ she screamed. She grabbed two of them by their arms and jerked them backwards. ‘Don’t touch that!’She spun them around, and pushed them in their backs, towards their camp fire. ‘Run! Get outta here!’ She grabbed the third one by his arm, staggered backwards in the sand, turned around and dragged him away from there, ploughing through the sand as fast as she could, chasing the other two out in front of her.

 

’Bloody hell, it’s heavy,’ panted Jonno. The other bloke groaned and heaved. Something pointy and triangular broke the surface. A smile lit up his face. ‘Hey! It might be a bit of shark after a...’

   ‘Shush!’ Jonno stopped him with a hand movement. His face had gone grey. ‘That’s not a shark.’

   ‘It’s not? Then wha...’

   ‘Shut up and pull. Go on!’Jonno barked. Sweat was beading on his forehead now, and his breathing had become rapid and shallow. His heart was beating fit to blow up. ‘Pull, ya bastard!’

   The other bloke grimaced and scowled, but bent his back over their load. They pulled.

   The net emerged from the water. A pointy triangular elbow stuck out, motionless above the black water.

   ‘What the fu...’ The second bloke turned towards Jonno, but Jonno had leapt forwards into the water. Shoved his arms underneath the object, grunted and spun it over. It wallowed in the water, then turned, slowly. Water drained off it.

   Looking up sightlessly at the sky, behind a sheet of net meshing, was Joe, mouth wide open in an unfinished scream.

   They finished it for him.

 

Snakeman stood on top of his mountain, the mouth of his cave somewhere below him. A mild breeze blew around his head. His hands were shoved deep inside his pockets, and his shoulders were hunched high up. He scowled at the world.

   Below him the river valley stretched out into infinity, returned to its timeless peace.

   A heart-rending scream welled up from the valley floor far below him. It was joined by other voices, high and low and raw, wailing and keening, until they formed a dissonant choir. The sound echoed off the red cliff faces, and reverberated around the mountain.

   He kicked at a little rock. It bounced twice and disappeared over the edge in a puff of dust, crashing into the bushes below.

   Wouldn’t you know it. After all that. He was buggered if he was going to get his eggs back now.

   There was nothing for it.

   He’d have to produce some new ones.

   He swore at length with feeling. He hated laying eggs with a passion.

   It always gave him haemorrhoids.