Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom. Alexis de Tocqueville
We left the following day. A boat, which looked homemade, with high metal sides took Tom and me away from the Sydney settlement. Panda, Ardent, and Cantilever waved us off after first crushing each of us in turn in a warm wombat-like hug, which was something we were getting more used to. Ardent, as usual, made us feel like all was good weather and tranquil seas. Bunyip and Candy watched on with tails down, but it was better for them to stay here, as they were soon to become parents.
Valour and Theodore waved from a high window, and I noticed a tear slide down Tom’s cheek. Dion was dancing about wearing an athletic outfit, preparing to run on the bank beside the boat as we departed.
Ardent had pleaded for Panda not to ostracise Cantilever, saying this was simply another form of bullying behaviour. He had been excluded from ‘in-groups’ and knew it was painful.
‘Cantilever was lacking social skills and was feeling worthless and depressed: what she needed was help,’ Ardent said. But how to do this?
It is true for all of us that we don’t know what we don’t know. What if Cantilever simply had an inability to fit in and conform and understand others. Her maladaptive behaviours may come from a deficit that could not be repaired. I did wonder, though, if Ardent was naive and unaware of how others operated, knowing only the inside of his own head.
Panda didn't seem convinced that Cantilever deserved any mercy. Time would tell what she really thought and what she might do.
The boat began moving along, and the dock area slipped away. We waved to Dion, who yelped, ‘hooroo!’ and then swiftly became a jumping dot in the distance. It was then that I noticed three snipers, clad in camouflage outfits, concealed with rifles stuck through holes in the metal sides of the boat. I had to wonder what we were getting ourselves into.
‘Tom,’ I said, ‘do you ever feel cheated and depressed that we have to live this kind of life? I mean, when you think about how people before went to school, got jobs, attended college, travelled the world, and had entertainment on tap. It’s like we are just treading water.’
Tom looked thoughtful. ‘No, I feel privileged to be alive and experience life. Most people have died, and they are the ones who have been cheated. For us to be here, great chains of our ancestors needed to survive and have children, who needed to survive. We have lived through a great crisis for humanity, and we are still here. I do wish that I had got to experience a world with robots and self-driving cars, though.’
‘I think about the lives that I could be living,’ I whispered, ‘but I’m glad I missed out on going to high school, as Nan said it was like entering a battlefield of wild animals.’
I looked around and could see Centrepoint Tower like a toy in the distance against the silk blue sky, the tall buildings like alien mushrooms, the crumbling shells of the Opera House, and the coat hanger-like bridge. I could see no people.
We cruise past collapsing apartment buildings and houses stuck like oyster shell middens on the harbour shores, shipwrecks and abandoned boats, and cranes without jobs, like skeletons.
We pass under another bridge, which has fallen in, with a car hanging from the edge like a modern art piece. I point to a huge ferry carrying cars that will never get to the other side. I see a mansion, like that from a fairytale, and a few seagulls glide past.
Another bridge, crammed with unmoving cars, with the outlines of bodies. The sky is pearlescent, and more frozen dinosaur-like cranes.
There are explosions in the water, but they’ve missed us, and we are already away, surging onwards, but I hear Hera yell, ‘There’s no such thing as legitimate political authority.’ Then I see her laughing like a mad dingo and waving.
Strangely, rather than becoming hypervigilant, I fall into a doze.
I wake to Tom talking excitedly, saying we have arrived at Emu Plains and that he has seen platypuses swimming about in the water.
I looked over the edge of the boat, and sure enough, there were a few comic-looking platypuses paddling about, which made me laugh.
The males have stingers on their back feet, which can cause a lot of pain if they get you.
‘It’s a plata-posse!’ chuckled an older, fit-looking man with a luxurious moustache, wearing long trousers and a long-sleeved shirt decorated with pictures of galloping horses. He raised his hand as he emerged from the dense bush.
‘Greetings, young’uns, my name is Fred. I am going to escort you to Springwood, and then we will continue on to Medlow Bath.’
Tom and I both nod, not sure what to say. But we would soon learn that Fred was a man of substance, of meat, muscle, honour, and sense: a wise man from an ancient story.
A man and woman are sway-walking towards us. They are wearing baggy tie-dyed pants and dirty t-shirts. Their hair, which was like something you could land an aeroplane on, is in bunches and looks like rope that has been dragged behind a tractor.
‘Hello, seekers, the unfolding of empathy is coming, and you will experience your spiritual potential if you come with us,’ said the woman in a strange fluting voice.
‘Yes,’ added the man, nodding, ‘we will plant the seeds of insight, and the future will unfold on a mystical plane of expanding consciousness.’
‘What a load of meaningless gibberish! Be gone, muesli crunchers; we haven’t got time for this load of drool,’ Fred stated, but his smile managed to disarm the pair, and they smiled back.
I was feeling anxious, because saying stuff like this could get you cancelled in the old days. But Fred and the hippies were smiling at each other in delight. People sure are weird.
‘Our auras are in harmony with the Universe,’ the woman crooned.
‘Yes!’ the man exulted, ‘our cosmic energy is aligned.’
The woman, seeing my missing hand, clasped her hands together and said, ‘It’s a sign; we can take healing to the next level. Our reality will escape this bondage.’
‘Whatever,’ I said.
‘Righto, Calli and Romel,’ said Fred. ‘So, how’s the road to the mountains? Any dangerous Sovereigns about?’
‘The astral field is clear according to our third-eye revelations,’ they replied in unison.
‘Also,’ the woman Calli added, ‘there’s heaps of blackberries on the vines now, which means that people are grabbing those to eat and bottle and stuff.’
‘Ah, the fruited vines. Good to know! Thanks a lot. I really value your work.’ Fred beamed at the pair.
It was weird; I had expected Calli and Romel to have a bit of a wobbly over Fred’s words, but they just waved at us in a zen-like manner, and we began our journey after looking over the river at the building where we had spent the day with Nan not so long ago in time but a world away in experience.
I also remembered how Nan told us about this person who was married to a prince in the old days, who used to talk in a technojargon-hippie style. There were plenty of strange fish to add to the long list of oddballs, I thought.
Tom followed the line of my eyes. ‘No-one ever steps in the same river twice.’
Fred handed us some broad-rim hats and long-sleeve shirts. ‘The sun is vicious for this skin from the old country, and you’ll be burnt to a crisp soon enough.’
I noticed that a fire had careered through parts of the bush recently, and some of the trees were charred and skeletal. There had been heavy rain too, and so the fire hadn’t spread far. Let’s get going, tout suite.’
We muttered our thanks and began the journey.
We walked all day, but this time we travelled up Old Bathurst Road, passing a prison surrounded by tall barbed-wire-topped fences.
A small girl was running up along the fence and called ‘hello,’ as we passed.
‘Talk to me, please! Every day is like a year in here,’ she cried.
‘I’ll see you later, darling,’ Fred called to her.
‘That’s my granddaughter. She doesn’t understand the danger that exists outside these walls that protect her. She wasn’t alive during the meltdown of society, and the stories and history we tell her don’t stick. She just wants to kick up her heels and be free.’
Fred shook his head sadly. ‘We won’t be able to hold her and many of the other young’uns for long.’
Confucius said, ‘by three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest,’ Tom chanted.
‘Perhaps we humans are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over,’ Fred said dismally. "We had food on tap, rights, rule of law, a centralised democratic government, and complex communication systems and so much more until erosive cynicism ruined it all. Is history cyclical? Will progress and an upward trajectory inevitably fail? This is the question that keeps me up at night.’
‘I don’t believe that anything is inevitable. I think the future is open. We just need consensus to achieve things, and maybe those seeking to undermine a community shouldn't be entitled to be part of it,’ was Tom’s reply.
‘Dion reckons that there are cycles that happen and repeat. He says that there is a time of collective strength and belief in the society and institutions. Then the next generation questions everything, causing change and revolutions. The generation after this is disillusioned and has lost hope in their society. The following generation, the Fourth Turning, brings crisis,’ I breathed. ‘He said that generations are shaped by the happenings of the times, but generations also shape history.’
‘That’s pseudo-science,’ Tom said dismissively. Some things are so silly only an intellectual, trapped in linguistic formulas, would believe them.’
‘What?’ I spluttered, confused, but then I said something I was thinking about. ‘But maybe we all have a fate that we cannot escape. Maybe you try to take a road less travelled and change direction, but your destiny still comes for you, whatever you do.’
‘It’s time to collect toll, lads,’ rumbled a voice deep as a coal mine. We swung about to see a man outfitted in armour crafted from corrugated iron, pointing a gun at us, flanked by a motley crew of highwaymen.
‘Get down on your knees ‘ya mob of clowns. NOW!’ Screamed a mugger with a thing like a metal letterbox on his head. He looked a bit like a cartoon character, and that thought, combined with fear, made me giggle and snort loudly.
The goon swung his shotgun around to point it at me and said in a low, threatening voice, ‘What’s so funny?’
I opened my mouth but found that I was unable to speak. A man tall as a ghost gum strolled over towards me and called to his gang, ‘Come and have a look, boys.’
I was expecting Tom to jump in and save me, but to my amazement he didn’t move. This is serious, I thought, my heart galloping.
© Copyright 2025 Democritus Jones