Outback Night

Ahh, evening time. The soft sussuration of the night breeze in the gum trees. The soporific sound of insects chirping, frogs hiccuping in the creek. A road train passes with its oddly comforting distant night time roar, perhaps with the driver belching contented memories of deep fried sausage from his Kumarina Roadhouse dinner break. Snoring dogs, twitching with dreams of bungarra holes and rabbits; the warm chortle of sleepy chooks settling on the coffee table. Smokey sits by the pond, watching beetles in the dark. Crystal clear stars arc across the sky, blinking out for a moment as a bat flits by. The outback night stretches out in a vast almost-silence, not sleeping but at peace with itself.

"YAAAAGH! YA BLACK CUNT!!!"  "FUUUCK! BOOORRRGH! YAAAGH!"

The traditional owners of the land join with their own night song, fighting hand to hand outside the Meekatharra Hotel, throwing bricks at each other outside the Royal Mail, their tiny children darting among them on the highway. Nearly every phrase you hear contains the words "ya black cunt". Post modernists might say it's a clever disempowerment of the white words of abuse, claiming them as their own; listening to it, it just sounds like utter inner emptiness, the lowest depths of a total lack of self-esteem, savage, brutal, anguished, inhuman. Lost.