‘Thought you wanted to kill me! Thought you wanted your revenge, but this?’ Your mouth twists.
You look so disgusted by me that I turn away. ‘I’ve been trying to help you!’
‘Help me do what?’ You make that sound again, guttural, more animal than human.
I step backwards, licking my lips, tasting your sweat. Once, this was all you wanted: me wanting you, me wanting this place.
‘Just be grateful!’ I shout. ‘I came back!’
‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’
You lurch towards me so violently the camp bed tips. You go over like a mountain falling, fumbling in the dirt, trying to right yourself, wrestling yourself away from the bed, but your ankles are still tied to it.
‘Fuck you!’ you shout. You reach for me, try to grab my legs. ‘Bitch! I never did nothing like this to you. I never did nothing so sick!’
I stumble to my feet, away from you, panting. I’ve unleashed a demon.
‘You’re the sick one!’ I shout back, kicking dirt in your face. ‘The whole world thought that! You’re the twisted fuck who went to prison!’
You’re screaming too, words and noise, but all I hear is
You’re sick.
You’re sick.
You’re sick.
Like a wildfire, you’re still coming for me, grabbing bits of vegetation and water bottles, throwing them at me. I stagger away, turn towards the house. But I can’t lock myself in, because there’re no locks on your falling-down shithouse doors.
‘Just stay away!’ I scream. ‘Stay away, you fuck!’
I felt so certain that you wouldn’t hurt me, not after everything you put me through. I felt sure you’d feel too much remorse, accept your punishment, let me do the things I needed to do. I leave you scrambling in the dirt. As I go, I see myself from above: a person not quite me, and not quite anyone else, screaming harsh ugly words back at you.
You’ll come around. You’ll see what I’ve been trying to do and then you’ll understand. Then you’ll come back. Or maybe I’m not thinking straight. Maybe I’m the one who needs locking up.
Inside the den, I shut the door and lean against the soft wood, breathing hard. When I can no longer hear you hollering, I find a broom in the pantry and start sweeping furiously, pushing the leaves and sand, branches and insects towards the wider veranda on the other side of the living room. I open the curtains and the Separates appear through the cracked windowpanes. Insects drop on me and I brush them off and carry on. I’m the whirling wildfire now.
As I sweep bigger and bigger mountains of sand onto the veranda, sweat trickles down my back and legs. It settles in the corners of my eyes, clouding my vision. You should be doingthis; we should be doing it together. I grip the broom, so full of rage I could snap it. I shake off a spider, brush it outside too.
When I step back to survey my handiwork, I want to scream. It hardly looks any different. I sweep harder, trying to get every bit of filth out the doorway and onto the veranda. I shove the couch out from the wall and bash it, clouds of dust choking me. I wipe the curtains across the windows to let light in through the glass, then yank them from their rails, ball them up and chuck them onto the load of debris on the veranda. I move faster and faster.
I must be crying as I shove the broom down the corridor; my face is itchy, and I keep wiping my eyes to see. It’s darker here, the meagre light from the windows doesn’t reach this far, and the dust seems thick as mud, up to my ankles in places. I stab at it with the broom, scream at it to go away. All I know is that I have to keep moving, keep sweeping, keep trying to push things back to where they were.
And then, in the doorway, slithering out from your old bedroom—a snake, wrapped around the corner of the door, in the gap I couldn’t close yesterday.
‘How dare you!’ I shriek at it.
Its head curls around the door, resting on the floor, watching me sweep. What right does it have to make its home here, in our place, when it has the whole desert? I feel nothing but fury at it. No fear at all. All I can think is that it shouldn’t be here, just one more thing ruining this house.
I grab onto the door and slam it as hard as I can against the snake’s body. When it hisses, I do it again. When it raises its head, I bash the broom down too, pinning it between the door and the frame, smashing it over and over. When its tonguedarts out, I thud the door against it again.
It’s you I’m bashing. I see your head on top of its body, your unblinking blue eyes, your tongue flashing. You’re laughing at me, low and nasty, mocking me. Any moment now, you will rise and strike. You will latch onto my ankle and you will not let go. Your venom will spread before I can stem it. The pain will never end. I hit you harder and harder, until the snake’s body goes limp.
When I finally stop, there’s blood on the doorframe. My hands are shaking and red. I steady myself against the wall of the corridor. As I shut my eyes, everything spins. I hear racking sobs. Mine, I guess.
‘Just shut up!’ I shout. ‘SHUT UP!’
No one shouts back. If you have untangled yourself from the camp bed, you’re not coming to find me. I kick the snake with the tip of my boot, but it doesn’t move. It’s a brown snake with a pale underbelly, not all that big. I don’t know if it’s venomous. But I didn’t kill it because I was scared. I wanted it to die.