Balwyn, Melbourne 1966

A winter’s day
In a deep and dark December

I am alone
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow
I am a rock I am an island

Run this message into Mrs C next door, she instructed me.

No… do I have to???? I silently, desperately beg.

I let the back door slam as I leave and creep through the side garden to their backyard gate. As I tread softly, slowly, silently down the side of the house, I try to make myself small, invisible.

Please, please, please be there Mrs C

Please, please, please not Him

I get to their kitchen door and peer through the flywire. I can’t see her.

Come in Sue – the door’s open

In the darkened room behind the kitchen He is there, his face lit by the flicker of the TV.

A presence.

Sitting, Waiting, Watching.

Mrs C is out, but I’ll give her the message. Come and talk to me.

Come, sit on my knee.

I’m too big to sit on anyone’s knee – I’m nine years old

I sit there, frozen, on His knee, in the massive black leather chair.

I look at the TV.

It’s all dark, bleak, a dream.

But it’s not.

I scamper back to my room, safe and warm.

I play Simon and Garfunkel as loud as my portable turntable lets me, drowning out my fears as I yell out the words.

I’ve built walls
A fortress deep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pains
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain
I am a rock I am an island

 I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armour
Hiding in my room safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock I am an island

I forget. I sleep.

I dream. In black and white.

I’m on a road that has barbed-wire fencing running down either side.

I am alone and so small and insignificant.

I walk down the arrow-straight road towards the monster machine in the distance.

There’s a single yellow flower on the verge, which I pick

Then I keep walking, walking until the monster swallows me

And I fall, fall, fall …….

It’s the morning, the light streams in.

I’m still here.

I’m still me.

 And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries

Stereo story #724


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Sue has published a range of books, academic and general, including “Beeton’s Guide to Adventure Horse Riding”, “Travel, Tourism and the Moving Image” and "Then Dad put me on His Shoulders, the Story of the Queenscliff Music Festival". Her most recent book, "Unravelling Travelling: Uncovering Tourist Emotions through Autoethnography" discusses the power of memoir. https://books.emeraldinsight.com/book/detail/unravelling-travelling/?k=9781801171809