Terra Nonnullius – A Short Story

5-minute read; 10 to work out who owns what; 5,000 years of human history to suggest you won’t be getting an answer any time soon. John Rux-Burton

When I finished my writing course at Oxford, my tutor, Shaun McCarthy, told me: “You should think about other stories in this unsettling vein — a kind of mini-series of stand-alone dramas. Give Inside No. 9 a run for its money.”

I found that comment again the other day, and it got me thinking. My trilogy of novels, The Ghosts of Swelford Slaughter—satire involving hideous Cotswold bankers, ghosts, and a god with a bird complex—is concerned with the entwined patterns of the universe.

This short story is different. It is short, dark, and without a cosmic jackdaw, or a whiff of redemption.

Just a man who’s run out of road; whoever’s road it is.

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Terra Nonnullius

I’m not writing a short story; I’m writing a long story... very long, longly long as that news idiot might say, or I might say; just did. Longly long ‘coz I ain’t gonna ever die. No way, Jose. Or Hosanna, just in case.

I’m 35 and that 35 ain’t old, ain’t young and so I’m gettin’ on with life and the wife... sometimes. Doreane, not the wife, she says “Car’s a beaut... and she’s a ute”. Says it sometimes, when I pull in. Pubs heaving and she’s on verandah, being all Juliet, all Helen, giving me a flick. “Car’s a beaut and she’s a ute.” Handy, makin’ a rhyme that makes me cool. She’s a beaut all right. Bit too fast for these parts, lettin’ me get from A to Zee. Letting me get over the roo roads that squash a little flatter with every bump. Just a hop away from a refill. Squelchy, them little potholes.

Why am I tellin’ ya this? Because I’m dead. Which is awkward, givin’ I ain’t goin’ to die. Got blood on me RMs, blood on me denim, and blood where that bit of me, what used to be, is now off somewhere. Somewhere up the freeway, somewhere north o’ Bendigo. Can’t see it now and couldn’t anyway, given as the night’s dark above, and there are too many stars to see nothing but the stars… and the lolly-tops of eucalypts, bark in the light, the tops silhouette in the distant glow of the next town on.

Never should’ve hit a roo. They sleep among the gum-trees and the scrub. Don’t wander much. Not this time o’ night. Don’t come sudden-like, like some trick movie shot; no sudden in the beams, all nothing then something. Nothing in between.

That’s why it’s OK to drive fast, what with no roo and the beer and the fact I ain’t going to die, never, no way. No, this time a night, roos don’t do no hopping… and none of them did.

But the girl did and now she’s mostly on the bonnet: Rode it like a wakeboard all the way to that big ol’ Mountain Ash. That’s still breathin’; she ain’t. Shook a dozen gliders out the branches. There’s bird shit on the bonnet. On her too. Spooked them like paper-planes in the upturned lights. Like the distant ones, what leave a trail, over the Gramps, heading in. No, that mountain ash is still breathing and it will a few hundred years more, if the fire don’t come. And if it do, the bruise of the roo bar won’t be making no difference then.

She got a dent too. The tree, the girl. Will wear them like the mark in me nut where that spanner hit… it came across the dash, like a spaceship in the void o’ space. Slow, light years coming at me, waiting to dock. From another place, coming, and coming. Then here and that was that. Split me skull, ripped the roof out like it were ripping stars (won’t be no fixing that) then out the window, rabbit punch like a backward flip; discussion ended. Just like when that druggy ripped the Head straight out the dash. Saw it, took it. Week’s money that too. Couldn’t go leaving it. Need me tunes, that’s me vibe. Playing something now. Ain’t sure what as I ain’t dead, but am.

Her, on the front, ash-faced, like the burnt bark of a man fern; white bird shit flecks on skin like the mud in Masons Creek. And the curly hair no more mess-up than before. And a diamond of glass in her cheek. Bottles gone, and the rest, them last few sips, spilled out on the freeway 100m back. And the rest of the rest, in her guts, 80, 70, 60m back, back and back and back, and all between.

I’m not thinking, coz I’m dead, but if I was, which I am, I’d think… no, don’t knows what I’d think… ‘cept, why was I on the freeway, under the stars, riding on a continent like a matchbox toy on loop-the-loop. Me stuck to the ground by something made against the grain.

Hey, there’s a roo. Sniffing. Be OK, don’t munch nothing but leaves them things. Foxes. Hum. Hope none of ‘em eat me face off before the ambo comes. Probably eat the woman first. Easy pickings. Not hard to catch. Pull her with a tug; munch to your heart’s content. No fox, you leave me in peace to rot.

Funny kind of thing. If I had that wife, she’d tug me now; rip me for Doreane, rip me being careless of me life, drinking when I should be home, leaving her in the lurch, what with a sprog and all. And that’d be nice, to be missed… though I wouldn’t miss the jocking. OK to get an earful for getting yourself dead, but not for falling over the cat with a schooner in yer mit. No, not that. No, not with dirt on your boots, and you as yer too tired to take ‘em off till yer had yer beer. What’s the point in keeping, if yer don’t keep?

Her on the bonnet with the bent teeth (no I didn’t bend ‘em, might have but I didnt). All bright, but probably yellow in the light. What she doing wandering in the night, what with me nearly home. Wandering out of Mason’s Creek. Should stayed with her people on the sacred earth; not wandered into mine. I was nearly fucking home girl! That’s right. Nearly fucking home and a man has a right, and it’s not like what it was late. Well not like no other Friday night. Don’t get that. What’s anyone doing wandering?

Anyways, now as I ain’t going to die, no ways. And maybe she said that too. Or maybes she said, I am, soon as I can. People ride the options. Maybe she said that just now. Thirty seconds ago now when I was turning up the dial on Hot City (Jesus, ain’t this stereo a beaut) and she was there; there like she wanted to be. Except then she didn’t, didn’t want to be there at all. In that sec, that second when the drink cleared, saw it, yeh, in her eyes… forever. Maybe I’m imaginin’… makes it better; cheap option. That’s me, cheap, easy option. That Doreane, well she’s no good but for one thing. All verandah and filigree. Anyone can see that.. and stake a claim. Other needs, other options. How it is.

I’m slipping into dust, like that Nolan I saw once down the city. Riding the outback in a grave of tin, slipping away. Not dying because I ain’t, not living ‘coz I can’t. Not undoing the past, because I can’t, or maybe won’t, or maybe I just did, or made it different; I don’t know, it’s hard to say now I ain’t dead. And she is. Maybe she ain’t, and is, and she’s wondering why she had to go get her grog spilt. Spilt on the sacred earth though: paid her respect to the elders, respects, whatever it is they say. Don’t matter much; don’t get me grog back.

Sacred land? Me, bonnet, girl, tree. Nothing sacred about that. Nothing is going back. Even if I might be dead. Nothing’s going back. And I ain’t dead. No way.

But it ain’t her grog to spill. And it ain’t just no ab.. no girl from Mason Creek. Or Doreane neither, she not the type to get killed by a ute. Maybe in the back of one.

Not her grog, but mine, spilled on my earth. Sticking in her, what’s left of me. And I was nearly home. And it ain’t like it was late. Not for Friday. So why’s she in the road? And it ain’t like she’s a roo, or some crazy drunk ‘un from Mason Creek. So why she in the road?

Me, bonnet, wife, tree. Nothing sacred about that. What will they say, when the ambo come? What will they say down the pub. And Doreane, maybe she’ll shudder for bit. Make her think twice, till she finds another. And what will they say, what with her sprogging in a week or two. Won’t get none of the boys jocking on the colour.

And me, well I say a man needs a beer. And what he don’t need, is a wife, who wanders in his road.

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Read more of my work

Sometimes I write like this. But much of the time, it’s way more fun, but with lots of biting satire (and myth and madness) thrown in.

I have posted an extract, which includes a special introduction provided by the novel’s narrator, Geoff the Jackdaw.

I hope you have fun. Please circulate it to others to read and please subscribe. It’s free and I can promise you lots of great new writing on a regular basis.