Doors of Liberation

by Sarah Vardaro

A novel draft written in real time. Join me on my journey.

Prelude

In the dim evening light a kangaroo shifts across the red dust, nosing scraps of vegetation. Silent among the cluttered cacophony of bird calls, she lifts her forelegs, raises an ear and leaps in pursuit of her life, in pursuit of freedom from the bullets that hunt her. 

In pursuit of the past where only spears sought her. Before ink had dried on orders to search for the path of Venus across the night sky. Before the white people stood on the land and deemed it hostile and then sought to make it so. 

Before the mallee scrub was transformed into fecund orchards and the river dried and ceased to reach the ocean. Before sheep ran through the silver canopy like lice. 

The station house stands empty. The weather beaten door ajar and the torn fly screen taps against the frame. She stops beneath the only eucalyptus tree in the yard and lays down. Her ears flick away the flies. Leah points her .33 and says ‘bang’ but she does not shoot.