Hazy consciousness invades a half forgotten dream that recedes from the grasp of my awareness like unset jelly slipping through the fingers of my most determined grasp. I become aware of the sound of chattering cicadas that already fills the quickly heating morning air as I slowly waken into the reality of what I know will be, on the one hand another interminably stultifying weekend, but on the other, my last in this insufferable place. It must be 8 am. I throw off of the light cotton sheet, the weight of which is already uncomfortably heavy as the inevitable desert heat returns to scorch yet another day, the same as it does relentlessly, day after day at this time of the year.
My wakening thoughts race ahead to next Friday when I will be released. When I will walk out of my classroom, across the bitumen quadrangle that lies in front of the school, through the metal gate and out onto the gravel road that runs alongside the school to my parked car. I visualise climbing into the driver’s seat, turning the key and without looking back for the last time, accelerate away through the town and out onto the long road that stretches back to civilization.
I lay there quiet, alone, restless, not quite ready to get out of bed yet. It’s there again this morning. I didn’t think it would be with my departure so imminent. It starts in the pit of my stomach and spreads across my entire abdomen; a kind of mild tightening of the chest as the awareness of the hollowness of my existence again invades the core of my being like it does almost every day now; like it has been doing for many months. I feel that deep and echoing emptiness lay like a thick, heavy blanket across my consciousness.
It’s Kalannie. It’s always Kalannie every day, and that’s the trouble. Who thought of creating such a place of torment? It’s an empty place, so devoid of any form of intellectual stimulation that living here is truly, a kind of exquisite, psychological torture. As I come to, on my final Saturday morning, these thoughts flood my brain again. Then the tightness starts again and spreads and invades my existence. I loathe this feeling. It grips me and holds me tight. I can’t fight it. I’m not strong enough to shake it off.
Kalannie can be found easily but surely only by anyone so lacking in other viable options. The West Australian north eastern wheat belt where it’s located and where I have lived for the last 2 years is part of the great swathe of land that stretches 1000 miles from the Indian Ocean in the west to the Great Southern Ocean in the south. It may be the productive breadbasket of the nation, but it’s flat, treeless, baking-brown sandiness offers little that rewards. The harsh desert colours and the endlessly repetitive scenery that stretches to the horizon in all directions offer little to relieve the monotony of the whole region.
There’s one main street that runs through the middle of town. Town being a word we Australians use to describe any-sized settlement of more than a couple of dwellings and on that parochial basis, I have lived in the town of Kalannie. That one road through Kalannie carries it’s travellers through town from one previous point of inconsequence on to the next. It’s a few hundred yards of black tarmac with one shop on the left. Don’t think of a smartly painted building with colourful signage announcing inviting treats to be discovered inside, think low falling-down timber framed shed structure with overhanging rusting veranda roof covering a dirt floor that leads inside. Further along the road on the right is the wheat silo, home to the vast loads of grain that local farmers annually truck in for the world’s hungry mouths. My GEHA house is the first house on that road as the weary traveller arrives in town. So my escape has always been tantalisingly close. All I’d have had to do was pull out of the drive, turn right instead of the normal left to work; put my foot down and just keep on going, until civilisation was again reached. But although I was sorely tempted almost every day, the need for work and establishing my career always somehow stopped me from doing so.
My last Saturday; one final week of teaching in this place and then finally I shall be free again. The handful of days ahead of me to next Friday seem to stretch out into the unimaginable distance. I’m already packed, everything in boxes waiting to be collect on Wednesday. Even the bed I’m now laying in. Everything will go on the train and I think ahead to the joy of the mild discomfort of sleeping in my Kombi Van for the last 2 nights before I can escape forever.
Loneliness is a relative concept I know. Some of my neighbours seem to live happy lives in Kalannie. Simple lives to be sure. And the children I teach are normal fun-loving, lively youngsters. Of course young children love the freedom to roam and for kids, a place like Kalannie offers endless possibilities for adventure, until adolescence arrives that is. Then the more mature mind starts to need more stimulation and Kalannie’s isolated location becomes a growing problem; usually resolved by moving away. I know this and it’s an unpleasant irony that for me to have been forced to retrace those adolescent steps of abandonment, to live in a place called Kalannie.
As I lay there in my early morning final weekend bed, a drop of sweat trickles down my right side and soaks into that lightweight cotton sheet. It’s hotter already than I thought. These depressing thoughts have returned in force again today, like they do on many similar days. Heat and emptiness of purpose are standing there at the forefront of my awareness, blocking my way. I start to think of what I might do today. At that moment I become aware that the blowies have arrived again. They love the kitchen because of the light and I hear perhaps 2 or 3 making their unwelcome presence felt. A large window to the side of the house floods the kitchen with light and heat every day. Blowies have endless ways of sneaking past the house’s fly defences and they always head straight for the kitchen and its light and smells. If they don’t find any food to “blow”, after a time they will empty their disgusting cargo of maggots onto the hot windowpane. Maggots thus deposited usually then slide down the glass under their own weight and onto the bench that sits under the window. Many a day I’ve returned home to find the vile creatures writhing all over my food preparation area. I try to ignore the blowies although I know I won’t be able to for long because I hate them with a passion. I’ve seen the way they kill a sheep; several of them will “blow” the poor beast which is then slowly consumed to death by the maggots.
I lay there, still, in desolate solitude. The weekend stretches interminably ahead. The trouble with Saturday mornings, even this final one, is that they start the weekend. For people living in more normal circumstances , the arrival of a weekend conjures up ideas of putting aside the week’s efforts; the arrival of freedom, fun, perhaps adventure and laughter. But when Saturday only means that the sole reason for your existence, that is your job, isn’t there to fill another tiresome day, there’s time again to think and that’s bad. Lots of time. Too much time. And that’s when the feeling returns. Loneliness. The searing emptiness of existence .
So I slowly open my eyes to another day. The sun is shining through the cloudless sky and has already started into its daily task of baking the parched earth. I let out a heavy sigh. Adrenaline suddenly runs through my veins and I want to jump out of bed and run away from this loathsome feeling. I roll over on my side, then straight back over to the other side. I slide my feet out from under the sheet that still drapes over them and onto the floor. I stand up and walk to the foot of the bed, then back again, then out of the room through the lounge and into the kitchen. I pick up the yellow plastic fly swat and start to chase the blowies in a sort of mild frenzy. Around the kitchen I move quickly, wildly swishing the fly swat trying to catch the dreaded creatures in mid air as they rush around the room. Eventually they land one by one and I deftly move towards them and with a practised hand, splat them out of existence. They deserve it. The vile critters deserve to die. These moments of activity relieve the feeling momentarily. I sit down at the wooden table that stands alone to one side of the spacious room.
The phone rings. It’s my mate John. He rarely rings even though we’ve been friends for ever. Someone to talk to. But blokes are hopeless; we just don’t do chatting very well. John and I catch up for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes of talking we run out of things to say to each other. In dread, I put the phone down knowing that he was probably the only person I’d speak to today, possibly for the whole weekend. The feeling quickly returns again. It’s bad today. I can’t shake it off and the day’s hardly begun.