He had gone this direction for only about 50 metres when he heard his pursuer’s crash into the clearing. There were some muffled conversations too muted by distance for him to hear. He stopped and crouched, straining to hear what was being said. Then a voice called out "there’s an opening over here", followed by more muted conversation and finally the sound of feet running off in the other direction. That was all he needed to hear, he took off again maintaining his careful footfalls. Every few minutes he would halt and listen, there were no sounds of pursuit. It was likely they would have noticed eventually the lack of tracks and broken foliage, and would be fanning out to cover a large area. This meant that he was far from being in the clear. This was harsh country and he had long ago lost his bearings. He merely ran in this direction because it was away from the pursuers. At some stage he would need to rest, and think, and eat.

Jim waited until the following morning when the Martin's both left for work to return to the house and discover the problem. The house had proven to be an equally perfect location; high fences and trees blocked the neighbours view to the house and allowed him easy access to the backyard. There was no need to break into the interior as all the equipment was placed in the roof cavity. He need only to climb the trellace to the roof and remove a few tiles to gain access. Once inside he was able to crawl along the beams with a torch in his mouth. He carefully crawled to the far end where the bathroom camera was, confirmed it was indeed in working order and moved over to the bedroom one. This also appeared to be fine. He then moved on to the far corner to check the main receiver was functioning. This consisted of a small wireless box that picked up the data from both cameras. Next to this was a battery pack that normally did not require recharging for another six months. Everything looked fine. He was certain that there was no interference, he had accounted for all the electrical disturbances and none were strong enough to cause a camera to show static. He deduced that it must be the camera itself, he simply needed to take a more thorough look. He turned and headed back to the bedroom again. It was a warm day outside and the confined area was beginning to really warm up. Sweat was dripping from Jim's forehead profusely. He raised his hand to wipe his brow when a hissing sound came from the beam directly above him. He looked up to discover a possum within two feet of his face, glaring at him with bared teeth. He let out a yelp and the torch dropped from his mouth and onto the roof, causing the light to switch off. In a panic he reached with both hands toward the place he believed it fell while at the same time feeling the possum’s sharp claws scraping against his cheek. He screamed again and lost his balance on the beam. The roof gave way with a split and before he had time to react, he was falling head first down the cavity between the two bedrooms. It was a good twelve foot drop and in the dark he had no chance to judge when the ground would reach him. It was all over in a matter of seconds.

The fall was enough to snap his neck when he struck the oak floor, arms spread out to his sides and still upside down, like Christ on the cross in reverse. It took another three weeks before he and the equipment were discovered. Complaining of the strange smell coming from the spare bedroom, Kate had followed her nose to the small air grate common in such old houses. She got down on hands and knees and looked through the ornate patterns with a torch, only to discover Jim’s grey horrified face staring back out at her, a fitting end for a voyeur indeed. Even in death he was spying on people.

He says to me that when you cark it theres some business t’attend to. Says to me theres this snake that sleeps right inside what he calls the sacrum bone which is near your arse. And when your ticker stops this snake she breaks out of this bone and starts a crawlin up ya spine and out your ead. “Fancy that?” I says, “right out ya ead hey?”. “But ya cant see it” he says, its visible only ta the man upstairs. Now this snake she gets ya soul in her mouth, cause she nabbed it on the way past your heart which is its natural home. Only shes real gentle, like it was one of her eggs see, and then she takes off and out of the one that carked it cause shes on a mission. “Mission?” I says sartastically. “What kinda mission she on exactly?” Smart arse tell me ta keep me mouth shut and he mights geta it. Now this snake she got a real sensitive tongue that smells. I starts to ask how this is possuble and he gives me the greasies so I sew the lips. Snakes they got real good sense o smell. Now shes on the lookout for sometin particulars. She lookin for a girl that’s up the duff see, but its gotta be three months on, cause that when the feetus is prepared ta takes a soul on. I rolls me eyes cause on the count of my mouth been incriminated already but he gives me the double greasies. So here she come, slitherin in when the ladies asleep, in the belly button she goes and real careful she puts the soul inta the feetus and whammo you got yaself a new baby.

“Bullshits” I says. “Honest to truth” he says. But this aint the end of the tale, cause he tells me that sometimes the snake she just cant find a woman that fits tha particular requirements and she gotta be rid of this soul before it gets cold. He says that sometimes the snake she gotta find herself an animal instead ta puts them while she waits. “Now the interstin thing to the story is this” he says. “And that is you can tell the ones that gone had some time in the animal cause he takes a feature o the creature into the feetus. “BULLSHITS” I scream at im. “If ya tink Im tellin a tall one then cop this” he says. And proceedings to tells me that he was put in a dog, and that the evidences is available for perusal in his own gob. “Me back teeth are as pointy and vicious as a Rottweiler and I tells no lie, an if yous don’t believen me then I invite ya to takes a look for yaself”. An like a cardy shark I calls is bluff and tells im I'll takes that gander. Now we all gots ourselves a comfy zone that nobody allowed in unless ya invites em, an ta lean in on a bloke who got is own zone leaves a man vunerables, theres no denyin it. I holds me breath and starts to lean for a closer inspection and gets ta within inches of his gob, all me concentration on the task of lookin up back for the pointy teeth. And then all of a sudden quicker than a fly onta shit he lets outa almighty bloody bark right in ma face “RRRUFFFFF”. Well me legs they gave ways under me and i lets out this whimper and falls on me arse in shock. This fella gon laugh is fuckin arse off, pointin his bony finger at me and makin me feel like an all day sucker. I lets out a screeching “MOTHERFUCKA” from me perch on the floor and he just doubles is cackin. And thanks God and strike me dead if me Mum wasn’t right about me being a tight arse, cause if I wasn’t one then I woulda fair shit meself.

I had figured it was going to be an easy task when I finally plucked up the courage to do it. Two hours tops and the dreams would never dare return. I had picked up a dozen bottles from a 7-11 and siphoned petrol into each one. I found a uniform in the back storage room to tear into strips and a fresh lighter from the counter. I didn’t have the guts to walk inside the house first, just stood on the balcony looking in to the living room for ages. I waited for the anger to come, the tears, anything, but there was nothing. Nothing like this city, these suburbs, shit, this planet for all I know. My heart has become as empty as the streets I have wandered alone for the past two years. I wedged the strips of cloth into each bottle, ensuring there was minimal leaking during its flight. The first one went through the glass with an ear splitting crash. No matter how often I have performed acts of needless destruction it still makes me look around guiltily. Those deeply ingrained social canons are hard to ignore. The smashed contents landed in the middle of the lounge room but didn’t catch. I threw a second one that smashed against the wall dividing the lounge from the kitchen; the flames ran down to the couch below, barely eking out a smoky existence on the dusty fabric. Frustrated, I flung another four in quick succession, but none of them hit anything flammable enough to really take. This was not going as expected. I wanted destruction, quick, absolute destruction. An end to my memories, burnt along with the house that contained them. I raised my fists to the sky and shrieked wordless sentiments to the emptiness above. Grabbing the box containing the remaining bottles I approached the door and kicked it in with the sum of all my rage, and pushed through into the lounge room. One at a time I smashed the bottles on the ground screaming “WHY. WON’T. YOU. FUCKING. DIE.”, each smash a punctuation point. I grabbed the coffee table and raised it above my head, then smashed it onto the ground, the petrol soaking into the splintered pieces. I pulled the tattered curtains from their hooks and threw it on the pile, then lit a strip of cloth and let it fall into the spreading fuel. I hurried back out of the house, all the more furious because I never wanted to set foot in the God damned house. This time the flames took and it had soon spread up the walls and into the roof. I sat in the middle of the road and watched my past become ash.

The walls eventually crashed in on themselves and thus prevented the fire from spreading to the neighbours houses, not that it mattered. I stayed there all night watching underneath a blanket until the embers became smoke, too afraid to sleep for fear the dreams would still be there waiting. Next morning the mists veiled the ruins of the house, leaving me with my thoughts, which were not much clearer. I concluded or rather talked myself into believing I had done the right thing. Knowing it was gone meant that I could move on, forget about it, forget about everything. The house was the last link to a life I no longer lived, or had a chance of living again.

It’s not like my life now is that unhappy. I have my routines and my pleasures. I love to randomly enter a house and by looking at their possessions, work out what sort of people they were. It’s amazing how detailed you can get. I often return to the families that I like most, catching up on their news and telling them about my travels. Not that I ever stray too far from Melbourne, what’s the point? One empty street looks much the same as another. Plus Mother Nature is doing a fine job of destroying the roads. Hell, I’ll be traveling most places on foot soon. The gap between the trains running on time and the end of civilisation is a bloody small one considering how much learning and effort it took us to get there. But to Mother Nature it’s the blink of an eye, or more aptly a zit on her face. And zits clear up in no time at all. The city itself is where I set up base camp early on once I left home for good. I hunker down in first floors of hotels, anything above that scares the shit out of me. I went to the top floors of tall buildings only twice, once to retrieve some personal belongings from my old office on the 30th floor and the second time to take a look from the observatory on the Rialto. That was only weeks into my time of isolation. I had a torch with me both times but it made little difference in the eternal darkness of those staircases. Worst of all was the echoes, which would turn my footsteps into an army of dead office workers stalking me from the ruinous heights and depths. My ragged breaths returning one hundred fold from beyond the torchlight, like a hellish choir. There was a moment of terror when I returned to the bottom of the Rialto and the door would not open on the ground floor. I cursed my stupidity at not bringing a crow bar and began slamming myself against the door again and again, screaming with panic. With great effort I calmed myself and thought of the basement entrance. I hurried recklessly down the remaining steps three at a time and flung myself at the door, which opened out onto a car park. I wept with relief, my hands shaking uncontrollably. I ran down the ramp and back out onto the street, breathing in the fresh air in heaving gulps, then heading directly to the nearest pub to once again kneel before the Alter of oblivion.

The New Release section will never be updated again, which for some reason plays on my mind more than anything else. The city and its contents are frozen in time, and I am like a demented Dr Who, traveling without purpose to infinite numbers of worlds, all empty. I wander around the desolate streets, which are like scars now instead of arteries, ducking into shops for canned food, reading material or just to forage. I walked into a sporting goods store a few months back and found a massive hunting bow, a Browning F5 Tornado with a draw length of 30 inches. I took it along with all the arrows I could find. I then went to the library and found some books on how to shoot it. I’m improving now that the arm muscles are handling the strength required to draw such a powerful weapon, and can hit a mark 25 metres away dead centre. My hunting instincts will never be improved upon as there is nothing to hunt; however just knowing I can shoot well gives me a sense of power and purpose. On hot days I walk the streets naked; the soles of my feet have become as leathery as the people who walked here when the city was still bushland. I even started playing the banjo; plucking away clawhammer style to some old folk songs I found sheet music for, the kinds of stuff Pete Seeger made popular. The best acoustics are found in alley ways and train stations, I pretend I am a busker and place the case in front of me with a few coins tossed in to motivate the audience to do likewise. I have never been anything less than captivating, the greatest show in town, come one come all. Boredom has yet to be a problem, there are always plenty of things to keep me occupied. This sort of loneliness would test most people’s sanity after a while, but me? I have always welcomed periods of isolation. Now that I am God’s last lab rat, I should feel guilty at how well I get along. Almost like I have called his bluff. All those people, strangers and friends alike, have been cleansed from my mind like an etch-a-sketch, to think of them would be like sowing the seeds of madness and adding water. Eric Clapton once said in a song – “All our past times should be forgotten. All our past times should be erased”. Who am I to contradict him?

I get up off the road, fling my blanket into the back seat of my Holden HQ, start the engine and drive off without looking back at the remains of what was once my home when the world was still alive. But home is a term that no longer applies to my existence. I have made certain of that by my actions today. My only sense of control in these circumstances is the dominion over my own mind, and the dreams were making that impossible. I burnt down my house as a defence against those dreams. I mean to be done with my past completely, or as completely as I can without making an end to myself.

Neither looking back nor looking forward.

Each second that passes is lost, never to be recollected upon again.

I am the last Phoenix rising for the last time from the ashes of a dead world.

As I turn the corner and head for the freeway back to town, I start singing Clapton’s song. But when I get to the part “As long as I can see your face again”, I begin to mumble the words, pretending I have forgotten the line.

Damn farmers, they reckon its about cost cuttin. Cost cuttin? That aint the only thing they cuttin alright. How bout I go up there and whop off a couple of their arses, see how the flies like that. Make an experiment of it. Which arse gets the most fly activity? I think I know the frickin answer. Cost cuttin farmers with their arses missing and their bullshit talkin bout saving a couple a squid, that who. Damn this train, tracks feel like they pushin back, maybe they heard about the sheeps too. May be they got the worry head too.