The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long. Lao Tzu
‘I had a sister once,’ Fred’s voice sounded from the darkness. ‘She changed after she got new friends and didn’t want much to do with the family anymore. She was living in a share house, living an alternative way of life. Then she got cancer. We knew nothing about it….or even where she lived….it was her friend who told us, much later. She gave all her money to alternative therapists and was convinced that her body and spirit would be cured in a few weeks. She wasn’t. The whole experience put the wind up her friend, who changed her life entirely.’
We were looking up at the moon as Fred told us this story, which was a gleaming plate in the sky, and I felt a current of awe and longing run through me before I turned over and fell asleep.
Dawn was crawling in when I awoke. I lay still, moving my eyes from side to side, when I noticed a brown snake lying comfortably on my pillow, which I had lost during the night. I did not move. Eastern brown snakes are very venomous and fast-moving, my days would be numbered if it got me.
Seconds passed like years. I was sweating. I did not know what to do. I could not speak.
A whoosh of air passed me, and I saw Fred spring forward, grab the snake by the tail and start swinging it forcefully above his head. The snake snapped in half, the head falling down the incline onto the flat rock below.
I still couldn’t move.
I wanted to get as far away from this place as fast as I could, but Fred cautioned me. ‘We have a ways to travel today, and so we should get ourselves a bit of brekky and plenty of water for our bottles. Go and have a frolic in the waterfall; you’ll feel better afterwards.’ He also said that when you’re scared, sometimes you take off like a ‘leapin lizard and other times you forget you have legs.’
‘Could we eat the snake, Fred?’ I asked.
‘Good thinking, kiddo. Go and collect some wood and stuff first, and let’s turn this sucker into a gourmet breakfast.’
After breakfast, we returned the way we had come yesterday, via the Grand Staircase. Though, it was much harder work on the way up than down.
At the top, Fred surveyed the surrounding scene with his binoculars.
‘All’s quiet,’ he pronounced.
‘No, it’s not,’ squeaked a pile of rags near our feet, next to a war memorial.
Fred jumped back. ‘Holy Barramundi! What is it? Fish or fowl?’
‘Professor Juliaus, at your service.’ The person threw back their hood to reveal hair so red as to appear on fire, jumped to their feet and bowed.
‘The Commune is on the move; be on guard and chary, my friends.’
‘What’s happened?’ Fred stuttered.
‘Apparently, the Commune attacked the Sydney Settlement. Don’t worry, our friends are fighting back. Some of the Commune are now heading west. On the warpath.’
Fred was lost for words.
‘Ardent, Dion, Panda……. all our friends……what will become of them?’ I wailed.
The professor’s eyes widened. ‘There’s an old track that will take you to the settlement in Medlow Bath.’
‘Where do we start?’ Asked Tom.
‘Well, laddie dear, you need to go to the end of Lawson View Road and follow the trail. Descend into Burgess Glen in Blue Mountains Creek. Before you cross the creek, you will find the Shelter Cave. I've left some tins of food there for you and a rough map. You’ll travel some rock ledges and fire roads, climb a few ladders, and cross Wentworth, Govetts, and Katoomba creeks during your journey. Good luck, now.’
And with that, Professor Juliaus sped away, disappearing into the gloom of tree fern shadows. ‘Every now and then a duck flies out of the oven,‘ said Fred, astounded.
Then, Fred looked down at the old war memorial. ‘I remember when I was a young nipper, the talking head on the radio was in a tirade about the Second World War and how this enemy army had been colonised and had their culture taken away from them. Then, they went on to say how this culture centred around headhunting, just like it was the same as stamp collecting or knitting socks.’ Fred shook his head.
Tom looked serious. ‘Could be relativism or nihilism, which were fashionable.’
’Right, then, kiddos, let’s go, even if the weather is a bit how ‘ya going.’ He looked up at the steely sky.
We were soon squelching through mud, slipping down glens, ascending and descending ladders and climbing along cliff tops. We had collected the bag of tinned food in the Shelter Cave, and when we reached the Lost Falls, we opened the bag and found a gun.
‘My giddy aunt! It’s a musket. These go back to the 1500s in Europe. This thing is positively antique! But it makes me a bit antsy. I always thought that it was strange that America’s founders’ words, “well-regulated,” were ignored about the guns. That didn’t work out well in the end.’
Rummaging about, Fred also found a tin of powder and a few musket balls. ‘Oh well!’ He sighed. ‘Make haste, musketeers!’ Fred cried theatrically, and we continued on, scrambling over fallen logs, inching over mossy boulders, step-by-step through slippery fast-moving streams and narrow muddy paths, onward and upward, with occasional heavy rain pounding us, the air scented with eucalyptus, as the sun slid across the sky.
In the afternoon, we were nearing Medlow Bath. We were cantering along, moving at a swift pace, when Tom stopped suddenly to stare at a small corrugated iron building with a pitched roof.
‘It’s a dunny, an old outhouse, you know, a toilet,’ Fred said dismissively.
‘Something’s strange about it,’ Tom replied, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully.
Just then, a crooked old man with grey hair standing on end burst out of the door and, seeing us, stilled like a snap-frozen fish.
‘Howdy do,’ Fred called, with a long blade of grass hanging from his teeth.
‘Well, well, well. What a to-do. Um, er, um,’ the man burbled.
‘What is the purpose of that building?’ Tom asked.
The man inflated like a pufferfish. ‘Young man, how dare you reference such private matters.’
‘I don’t think that’s a thunderbox; it’s disguising something else.’
The man began to hop from leg to leg in a comic manner. Tom pointed to a nearby empty shed which was covered with graffiti. That structure over there is a decoy. It’s been made to look emptied out and like it’s not worth bothering with. He then pointed his chin to the dunny. ‘This thunderbox has been made to look very disgusting and dirty, corroding and falling apart. But it’s all fake. There must be a secret bunker under here,’ Tom pronounced.
Scrabbling, skirring, the beating of bushes and the yakking of voices, hit our ears at the same time.
‘It’s them, the Commune. Quick!’ The man indicated that we follow him into the old dunny. We rushed pell-mell in behind him and watched as he tipped the toilet sideways to reveal a hole in the floor. It wasn’t very wide, and I wondered if Fred would get stuck.
Slipping down a pole with rungs on it, we fell in a heap onto a large mattress in an underground room with shelves of books and of strange shapes floating in glass bottles.
‘I didn’t expect these bunkers I’ve heard of to be so chock-a-block!’ Fred exclaimed.
Tom stood up quickly and began to ramble around the room, looking at everything very closely.
‘Dr Doohicky at your service, young trout. What can I assist you with, and what are you pondering?’
‘What’s all this about?’ Tom asked, open-mouthed.
‘I try to invent and work on strategies and weapons to defeat the Sovereigns.’ He pointed to a messy workshop littered with curious apparatus, devices and bookshelves. The jars are my cautionary tales. They remind me of valuable lessons that have been learnt. This one has the remains of a two-headed dog, an extreme and unnatural experiment. The books are about things I need to think about, like do I have a duty to do the right thing for our group, even if it produces more harm to the individual? Also, I read novels because I find many truths within about the inward lives of people and their choices. There are often philosophical and psychological ideas to ponder.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Tom.
‘Many terrible things have been done in the name of progress and science.’ Dr Doohickey said. ‘Ethics and moral rules are needed.’
Tom walked about and looked at the miscellaneous paraphernalia: Unit 731 and MK-Ultra etched on tiles, a map of Macon County, Alabama, a photo of a dog’s head attached to a machine, a photo of a man reading a book and the words “unethical human experiments at San Quentin State Prison” written underneath, a panoramic photo of the San Francisco Bay Area in California, and the words “Operation Sea-Spray.” And, many, many more artefacts and photos.
‘Are ethical and moral rules universal like the laws of physics? Or are there different “correct answers” to ethical and moral questions?’ I asked, then continued. ‘Dr Arty at the Sydney Settlement said that God gave the sword to the government for good reasons and there was no need to be ashamed of protecting peace and punishing wickedness.’
‘Too many red-blooded and muscular belief systems usually end up in a battle to the death. Reasonableness, tolerance and compromise is regarded as spinelessness by such people, ’ Tom interjected.
‘What about forgiveness? Those who have a powerful certainty in their beliefs are liable to commit atrocities, and they usually want to punish those who do not believe their stories,’ Dr Doohickey answered. ‘Most things rot, corrode, experience entropy and die, except supernatural beings. However, they also seem to magically change throughout time and align with whatever the believer thinks. Delusions generally deceive us.’
‘Yes, but what is the reason and meaning for life?’ I asked. ‘And isn’t it strange how it seems that this planet suits us so well? You’ve said Tom, that if things were any different, we wouldn’t be here.’
‘I don’t know the answer to those questions, but that doesn’t mean that you can plug your favourite belief in as the answer.’ Dr Doohickey went on. ’I believe that we should conduct our lives with honesty, fairness and always trying not to do harm to ourselves and others. I extend this to all sentient beings and those subject to suffering, That’s all I know.’
‘Perhaps Darwinian selection is involved,’ Tom mused to himself. ‘Maybe we were the only planet out of millions that could sustain life. Maybe we are just like mould growing in a house: the house wasn’t created for the mould, was it? Nobody took any notice, though.
Tom went on. ’There should be ethical oversight, accountability and boundaries. And, in general, I think we should try to help and do no harm, but what about if a wild dog wants to eat me?’ Tom asked. ‘I wouldn’t have an interest in that animal surviving rather than me. I’d want to harm it, to stop it. I don’t think that you should cause suffering without reason, but sometimes you have to think about the greater good that would be achieved. And what if instead of a dog it was another human group attacking us?’
‘From what you’ve told me, Tom, most atrocities in history have been done in the name of some idea of greater good, by those who pursue their principles up to death,’ I threw in there.
Fred added, ‘Someone once said that, “we sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” But the examples on your walls are a sobering reminder that we should try to remember that each person has worth and dignity.’
‘Well, my philosopher kings, let us rest and have a bite to eat and drink for now,’ Dr Dookickey said as he walked into an adjoining room studded with colourful beanbags. He walked towards a life-sized doll dressed in long robes and placed a goblet on its hand, which moved downwards, and a tube began to pour liquid into the goblet.
Seeing our stunned faces, Dr Doohickey explained, ‘It’s an Automate Therapaenis, a type of robot made in ancient Greece in the third century BCE. When the first goblet was full, the Dr removed it, handed it to me and placed another goblet on the hand and the pouring liquid began again.
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