Paul Collins: The Government in Exile and Other Stories

here we will spend days delighting ourselves with tales of our audacity.

Mary Sue and Ike are close behind me when I pick my way through tangles of

barbed wire. Ob's figure has disappeared into the gloom. I panic a little,

am tagged by a barb, pull, rip my flak jacket, then hurry off into the darkness.

Behind, I hear Mary Sue and Ike cursing me.

My mind alert for unemployed, I thread my way across the rubble-strewn terrain that was once a school playground. Elated, I see Ob shifting among

the shadows some thirty metres ahead. I lower my night amplifying glasses.

At any cost, I must keep track of Ob. He is my life assurance.

Each footfall drums in my ears and the wind whistles in accompaniment.

I

wonder why I am out here. Mayhem is not my forte. But I could not renege

on our agreement all those years ago. I did not wish to appear a coward before the others.

I wonder idly, as I have done for many years, whether it would be possible

simply to remain at the fortress, and perhaps venture out for an hour before the others return. I have yet to try it. Perhaps next year.

The moon, obscured, thankfully casts only a meager light. For an hour I track Ob. At times I lose him altogether. He suspects once or twice that

he is being followed, but I manage to elude discovery.

He will be merciless if he discovers my deceit. I lose sight of Ob as he

slides down an embankment. Beyond, I know a canal winds into the Bay.

Ob,

I suspect, will cause havoc to their shipping.

I hurry over the embankment's lip and slide down its lichened surface.

Suddenly I hit an oil slick. My hands go out to gain purchase but to no avail. I thud into Ob and together we tumble into the water.

Ob is dead. His gaping mouth and blank eyes leave no doubt of that. I stand numbly, wondering how the fall could have killed him.

I am amazed at my own stupidity. I turn rapidly.

There are two of them. One has Ob's rifle. It may as well be in the hands

of an infant. Clearly he does not know how to use it. Held as a club, the

rifle comes crashing down toward me.

I duck to one side, lift my foot into the man's stomach and pull him over

my shoulder. With arms flailing, he splashes into the water.

His companion, a thickset man with spiked hair and gross tattoos covering

his semi-naked body, lunges at me. I barely have time to curl my fingers

around the carbine and release the safety catch.

At such close range the bullets appear to charge straight through his body

and he crashes into me.

I am in shock. The rifle has not fired. This is more appalling than the man's weight landing on me.

He hits me resoundingly on the side of my head. I pull sluggishly at my knife and slice at him. I feel his hot sticky blood crawl over my fingers.

Again and again I stab, until he is dead.

Only when I lose all energy and lie panting do I realise my ear has been

cut off. The blood I feel about my face mingles with my opponent's. I sit

there bewildered. I wonder how such a thing could happen to me.

Finally I push the repulsive body from me and the current carries it away.

His companion must have drowned, for there is no sign of him as I stagger

along the bank in search of a boat.

Ob. The thought makes me sick. How had those two killed him? How? I worry

over this question because I know that without Ob my survival chances are

not good. I flit between shadows and merge into others. I am over-cautious

in my every movement.

From afar I hear raised voices. A chorus of voices that speak jubilance.

Success. Ob has been found. Such as he deserves better. Tomorrow they will

hang his sodden frame outside the fortress. There it will remain until the

flesh falls from the bones, until the souvenir hunters dismember it.

I splash water over the gory rent where my ear once was. The salt stings,

but I hold down the urge to scream. Quickly I slap great dollops of mud over the wound in an attempt to seal it. It is while I am tending my disfigurement that an idea seizes me.

First, I must live out the day. To do this I must escape into the Bay.

Shortly I come to a craft that appears almost unseaworthy. I hear voices

and a dog's barking nearby. Hurriedly I free the boat from its mooring.

The canal water laps against my boot. Flotsam bobs against me as I unleash

the craft and shove it toward open sea. I do not bother to test the outboard motor that is rusting aft. Luck does not arrive in twos.

The current swiftly carries me out to sea and into the deep waters of Port

Phillip Bay. The sky is becoming rapidly lighter.

It will be a hot day. I shall soon suffer burns -- second degree at least.

Without food or water, I shall lose weight, achieve the appearance of one

half starved.

They will never detect me. Not burnt and disfigured.

A chuckle, with perhaps just a little madness, comes from my chapped lips.

I shall soon be joining the ranks of the Unemployed.

And so I drift aimlessly.

Without a care in the world.

© Paul Collins 1985, 2001. This story first appeared in Urban Fantasties,

edited by David King and Russell Blackford, and is reprinted in Stalking

Midnight, edited by Sean Wallace.