I wish I
could fly. Just soar up into the clouds and float along with the wind.
Completely free from the force of gravity. Maybe, if I could fly, I could
escape the torment of memories, the corruption of insomnia and the depression
of solitude. Or maybe I should wish I could swim to the deepest part of the
ocean (what’s that? The Mariana Trench or something?). Just feel the silence of
the water surrounding you, the only evidence that you were ever even above the
water being the ripples left on the surface. This makes me sound like a coward
right? Just wanting to run away from all of my problems. Well, if you knew what
I went through you might understand a little better.
I guess
that’s the reason I’m writing this down, so people understand. I hope this is
easier for you to read than it is for me to write. Trust me, it’s one of the
hardest things I’ve ever had to do, and I’m pretty certain I won’t be able to
do the events justice - I might as well say that now before we even begin. But
everyone tells me, to continue on with my life I must "first confront what
happened", and it's weird but I feel like I can trust all of you. I'm not
entirely sure why. It's not like we've ever met before...
Have we?
Right now, I
am down at the river at the bottom of my dad’s property, sitting on the fallen
tree that fell in last night’s storm. It’s not an old, rotten one that’s been
eaten from the inside out by termites and grubs, but a young sturdy one with a
smooth white trunk and a few deep green leave still connected to the branches under
the water. It’s hard to tell why it fell – I mean I know the storm knocked it
down obviously – but still, why was it chosen? I mean there is plenty of other,
taller, older trees around that could have quite easily been bowled over or
struck by lightning, but it was this strong, young healthy gum whose life and
prospects were ripped away so un-expectantly. Funny how the universe works,
huh?
The part of
the river I am in now is only about six metres across, knee deep and crystal
clear. There are these constant little concentric ripples from insects touching
the surface as they skim across. I wonder where they sleep – the insects I mean,
and when. I wonder if their eyes close when they sleep and if they worry about
waking up. I wonder what their names are, and do they have families? Poor,
nameless, sleepless insects.
This was our
place; Danny and I, I mean. This was where we used to come and sit, swim in
summer and camp in winter. It was the only place on the farm dad never comes
and it was totally ours, down to every rock and witchety grub. We knew it back
to front and front to back. An echidna couldn’t scuttle through the night
before without us noticing the place it had gone from and too. If a wasp built
its nest in a tree on the border it would be the first thing we noticed as we
walked in.
To be honest,
I am only writing about my surroundings to avoid what it is that I am meant to
be doing. Danny would never have done that. He was a straight forward action
man. Maybe I should get on with it before you stop reading, if you even are
reading…
Well, here
goes nothing.
It all began on a foggy morning on the outskirts of the little outback QLD town we like to call Mirambrook. Danny and I were on our way to school.
Oh! I’m so
dumb! Let me clarify one thing, my name is Dana Blake and me and Danny are, were twins. Maybe it was some sort of
cruel joke by our parents; naming me Danielle and my twin brother Daniel, but
that is just how it is and we have learnt not to question it. It’s still a
great joke to our friends though. You would think after 17 years they would
have gotten over it!
“Hey, after
school, do you want to take the bikes down to McGuthers? It might be a good
idea to get out of dads way this afternoon, he’s got the new head to count” he
said, pulling a face as he finished. I laughed so hard I almost choked on my
burnt vegemite toast. He laughed as well and patted me on the back. I nodded my
head in agreement as I took a sip of water, my throat tingling slightly.
McGuthers
Ridge is about a half hour away by bike and a beautiful place for hiding when
your dad is in a bad mood. Imagine a red rock cliff, topped with trees and a
grassy patch, which suddenly took a severe plunge down thirty feet. We did not
have any idea of what was at the bottom of said drop, nor did we feel any
inclination to find out. We didn’t go to the Ridge very often because it’s such
a trek but when we did it always put us in a good mood for ages. Sitting on the
edge of the cliff you can see farmland and hills for what looks like miles all
around, and on the very distant east horizon, you can just barely see the ocean.
At least we used to imagine we could.
Anyway, that morning,
Danny drove to the bus stop like usual, we caught the bus with the other uncivilized farm kids and got out at the
Mirambrook High School as normal. I met my friends Quinn, Mason & Stevie
outside, and Danny ran over to where his mates Jacko and Zeke were playing a
game of footy against some other guys. After I ran over and we talked for a
bit, Quinn and Stevie had to go do something for the school fundraiser that was
happening later that week. That left me and Mason to wander to our side-by-side
lockers together, talking about everything from the cattle, to the cake stall,
to the State of Origin. He kept subconsciously running his hand through his
messy blonde hair, and every time he did it I would reach up and fix it again
for him; he was 5’10 and I was 5’3, so it was always a bit of a stretch.
“We really
spend way too much time together don’t we” he laughed after about the sixth
time we had done it. I laughed and nodded my head, totally agreeing with him.
We had known each other since we were two and our dads introduced us on the
farm. We spent every weekend together since, and yet we never get sick of the
others company.
Anyway, that
afternoon, after we got home from school we ran to the sheds where the bikes
were kept. While I wheeled my Yamaha out I started to notice a soft rattling
coming from inside, but stupid me decided to ignore it and go anyway. When we
were about three quarters of the way there the noise was really starting to get
on my nerves.
“Danny!
There’s some annoying rattling going on in my bike!” I yelled over the hum of
the engines.
“Alrighty,
let the man take a look” He said, pulling his four-wheeler to a sliding stop, jumping
off and strolling over to the Yamaha in a fairly comical way - with his hands
on his hips and taking overly long steps. I couldn’t help but let out an
unladylike snort at the ridiculously sexist comment, but of course I knew he
was joking. “Yeh, that’s no problem. I’ll ride it from now on so that you don’t
have to put up with it!” he grinned at me and sat on the bike. Only then did we
hear the rumble of thunder a few kilometers away, and we looked up to see the
sky turned almost black with clouds.
“Looks like
we should go back though, that storm’s gonna be fierce!” I shouted. Danny
nodded and I sprinted over to the four-wheeler, and we set off at a monstrous
pace. We wanted to get home before the storm reached us, but that was
definitely not meant to be. The rain started bucketing down, drenching us to
the bone and making it hard to see the next meter, and the thunder was so loud
we could barely hear each other’s bikes, even though we were mere feet away
from each other. What happened next, I did hear though, and the sound will
haunt me until the day I die.
The sound of
cracking branches and rustling leaves, twisting metal and dirt falling away. I
stopped the bike and looked in the general direction of where I heard the noise
and ran to where it was. It’s not
anything. I thought to myself. It was
just a branch falling in the storm. But my optimistic thoughts could never
have been so wrong.
As I looked down the fallen-away slope, between the disturbed foliage and the broken branches, I saw the Yamaha a laying few feet away; crumpled and half submerged in the water. It looked like a tin can that has been kicked around a schoolyard for too long – squashed and broken. My heart started pounding in my ears, and I slid purposefully down the slope feet first – not caring at all for my own safety as I neared the knee deep water. I tripped at the bottom, falling face first into the cool stream, but getting up immediately and scanning the general area for Danny. I could smell the fuel leaking from the machine into the crystal water, and it made my stomach almost turn over, with the added stress of not being able to see my brother anywhere. I half expected him to jump up from under the water, shouting one of his classic one liner’s - “Watch it! That first step’s a doozy!”, but inside I knew something was terribly, horridly wrong.
The rain was
still roaring all around me, but otherwise it was completely silent. No bats shrieked,
no possums scurried in the trees, and no signs of life could be heard at all;
except for my sloshing of water as I pressed forward, my pounding heartbeat,
and my heavy breathing. By now my
clothes were absolutely waterlogged, and my hair was matted to my face, but
nothing mattered to me except finding my brother, and walking home together. I
tried to hone in on my twin senses, but for some reason I was feeling
absolutely nothing – not even a flicker of anything from his side. Suddenly, I
heard the sound of labored breathing to my right, closer to the bank than I had
been searching. I ran as fast as my clothes, the river, and the rain would let
me in the direction of the sound – scanning with my eyes, ears, and even my
nose to lead me to Danny. Then I saw him.
He was
slumped up on the bank; half out of the water and half in, lying on his
stomach, trying to crawl up the embankment. I sprinted to him, grabbed under
his armpits and helped to haul him up onto the shore. He turned over weakly in
my arms, and I gasped as I saw him.
His face had
cuts, bruising and scrapes all over it, and his right eye had a deep gash above
it. I scanned my eyes lower, and saw that his wrist was bent back in a horrible
way, his lower leg seemed to be almost dangling from his knee down, and he had
a large shard of metal dug deep into the center of his torso. It looked like
the handle bar of the Yamaha, but I wasn’t really about to analyze it, was I?
What scared me the most was the fact that he was starting to cough weakly, with
blood coming up into his mouth. He turned onto his side and crimson spilled
from between his lips, onto the already saturated green grass.
He turned
back onto his back and stared at my face from his heads position in my lap.
“Dana…” he
gasped so quietly I barely heard him above the growling and pounding in my ears.
Tears started to form in my eyes as I had a feeling I knew what was about to
happen. “Don’t forget me…” he breathed out, blood again trickling down his
chin, mixing with the cold water that already covered the both of us.
“I won’t have
too. ‘Cause you ain’t going anywhere, alright! Someone’ll come and help…” I
whispered, stroking his cheek with my hand, and wiping the blood from his chin.
I pushed my hands into the pocket of my cargo pants and groped around for my
mobile. I pulled it out of my pocket, fingers numb from both the cold and the
shock that was taking over all of my senses. I fumbled with the cover of the
black flip, and lost my grip on the slippery, wet metal. The phone dropped into
the water and the screen went black. I let out a choked whimper, before
gripping my brother tighter, and looked down into his shining eyes. The water dripped from my hair and face down
onto his, mixing with the tears that were falling freely from my eyes.
“Dana… Dana” he coughed out, and I started shaking my head, a few sobs managing their way up from my tightened chest. “Dana – Let me go…” I shook my head all the more and leaned down to kiss his cheek softly, before pushing my face into his chest. I felt gravel and blood against my face, but I didn’t care. His skin was cold, wet, and I could tell that he was getting colder.
“Dana… Dana” he coughed out, and I started shaking my head, a few sobs managing their way up from my tightened chest. “Dana – Let me go…” I shook my head all the more and leaned down to kiss his cheek softly, before pushing my face into his chest. I felt gravel and blood against my face, but I didn’t care. His skin was cold, wet, and I could tell that he was getting colder.
“I’ll never
let you go. Not for one second” I sobbed, hugging him. “I love you too much” I
felt his hand weakly rise up to rest on the top of my hand. I turned my hand
over and squeezed his fingers desperately between mine; subconsciously thinking
that if I can hold onto his hand, I can somehow hold his life together as well.
I looked at his face, and saw a weak smile on his trembling, blood stained
lips.
“I… I love
you too. More than you could ever know Dana. Please don’t forget…” He trailed
off slowly - his chest growing still, his hand surrendering its grip on my own,
and I looked up and saw his once laughing blue eyes had clouded over – staring
up into the angry sky unseeing. The sobs turned into loud cries into the night,
and I wrapped my arms as tight as I could around his cooling body; rocking and
holding him, wanting to feel his heart flutter, or his chest rise with a
breath, or to feel his hand lift up to hold onto me in return – to comfort me. The
winds howled and the storm raged on, but the rain started to slow. Thunder
could still be heard in the distance, and the lightning still could be seen
splitting the sky in half at every interval, but it was coming to an end. Whatever
God controlled the weather could sleep soundly tonight, knowing that he had
single handedly brought a new angel to Heavens Gates.
I barely
noticed that we were sitting in our spot. In our river.
I didn’t even
notice the sound of four wheeled drives pulling up behind me, the smell of the
engine fumes, or the light that suddenly enveloped me and my brothers’ body. I
hardly noticed the thudding of many running, boot clad feet, or the shouts of
the men who poured out of the trucks. I
only acknowledged them when they started to try to pull me away from Danny, who
at that stage I still had a tight hold on. A pair of rough hands gently touched
my shoulders, and tried to lead me away, but I kept my hold. The tears were
still flowing freely down my face, as I couldn’t help but stare into his eyes –
trying to will them into becoming bright and colorful again.
Then a set of
strong arms wrapped around me, picking me up under my back and my knees, and
holding me against his chest. I let my grip on my brother fall and I buried my
face into the strong man’s chest, continuing to weep, and I wrapped my arms
around his broad shoulders. He lifted me and pulled me closer to him, rubbing
his hand on my back to comfort me. But no amount of comforting words or
gestures would make me stop crying, stop feeling, and stop grieving. He carried
me away to one of the four trucks that had pulled up, and lay me down in the
back seat.
I finally
looked to see it was none other than my best friend, Mason Sheridan, who also
happened to be the closest thing to a neighbor we had. Mason jumped in beside
me, closed the door and continued to rub my back. He smelled of sweat, and hay
bales, and looked absolutely exhausted. His normally spikey dark blonde hair
was slumped down from the rain, and his warm grey eyes showed worry, and genuine
compassion. As I lifted my head to look out the window I saw three of the men
had taken Danny’s body and covered it with a small tarp that had been in one of
the trucks trays. I recognized one of the many men immediately as my father – Warren
Blake, cow breeder extraordinaire (Note the sarcasm), who is constantly under
the pump, and looked a hundred years older right at that time. Some others were
Danny’s friend Jacko - Jackson Marks,
Mason’s dad – Ben Sheridan, Brenton Fuller – one of dads friends, and
Chris Pane – the town bakery owner who dad went to school with. It seemed as if
they had formed a rather huge search party in an effort to find us. What a
waste.