Opaque the day, wherein she lay

     The city flickers off. Although, of course, some lights are eternal. The canal bends lamp posts catching an invisible current. The sky has a pantomime moon, orange, fallen on the stagey horizon. Cats, foxes, an occasional possum, glow in their own way – eyes out, about, lingering. Jonah fingers the cash in his pocket; the dye has spread to his hand. This is the money for Halo’s funeral. Now it is a blue dash of unuse, a fool’s hope let loose. A late flight sheds its ticker colour, veering towards the outer suburban airport. The same noise of arrival, and departure. Further along, the overpass is a roof over more bombed out lives. They nod to each other – no speech occurs here. People rattle about, back from the Church food van, settle on coats, look at the town. They are the memories of others.

     “I need eight thousand dollars, please”. The teller is nervous, places the bundles of bills into the open Gladstone. “No, I don’t want all that, just what I asked for, please.” The teller takes the extra cash out, shaking, unfamiliar with people at all these days, eyes steady on the object inside Jonah’s loose clothing, the angle it takes, the length. “Thank you, sorry, I’m leaving now.” He stays there until the stranger has passed by the glass front, calls to the staff inside the office behind the walled in counter, presses the buzzer, sits down, smooths his trousers, and stretches the legs back down over his pull-on boots. The manager tells him to go home now, the police ask for a description. “Polite”, he says, thinking of more. “Restrained, but like he had somewhere to be. We don’t see many customers.”

     His fingers are woad. A song calls across from the tram stop. Gulls brawl over spilled chips. The wind throws what it can, chains of melodies from different places. A silly dog skirts trains. There is a mauve wallow to the sky. Sirens trumpet dawn, alarms wake the working, pets prance to be fed, babies cry, again. On Borrow Hill where the Treaty stole everything, a Trustees crew works the tractor bucket, dropping Halo into excavated clay, yellow as a fire cast medallion. Jonah spends a tarnished twenty for a Full Breakfast of consequence. On the bench, overlooking the river, so still the air the fish smell, and he watches his years count down to a smile and a sister, as two officers approach slowly. The city flickers on. Although, of course, some lights stay off. Now.

Clarice Beckett The Yarra 1930