Barrack Street
PERTH
October 20th
When I get outside, I take a deep breath, look around at the trees, flower verges and bins where foxes would be if they were here. You’re not here. I no longer see your face anywhere.
On this chilly spring day in Perth, the commuters and tourists know nothing about me or you, nothing important anyway, and this ancient land beneath us doesn’t care. I want to pull off my uncomfortable high heels and step onto this land that is older, more resilient, more enduring than any coloniser. But I can’t go barefoot on the sodden grass, not right now. The air smells of frangipani, hot chips, lemon balm and traffic. I sigh out the courtroom.
Just like that, you’re gone from me.
I feel you leave like a breeze.
The man the jury decided I did not kill is just Tyler Andrew MacFarlane of 31 Banksia Drive. A man good at fixing cars, and at art, and who had a tragic, loveless upbringing. A man who did something very stupid and terrible when he was twenty-seven years old, my age now, and who did not get away with it. Tyler Andrew MacFarlane, who I will not see again. Like a change in the season, he is out of my head, and I am left with me, all of me. And with something new too: a new love growing inside.
A release.