Winds of the Wasteland
by Bradley Kermond
“Most people own some wealth, such as their house, but this is not capital. Most capital i.e. factories, money, is owned by very few people, perhaps as few as two-percent of the world’s people.” – (Ted Trainer)
So what does the ninety-eight percent of the world’s people actually own? We own the Big Man’s mistake. Poverty. Hard work. Homelessness. Disease. This is my story on how the Big Man with his briefcase full of money pushed us out of our home, the only wealth we owned.
Grey clouds from the west move in on the machines. The clouds have been growing from pressure systems down south. The Big Man has been smiling for days at the cold army of fast flowing air. The land used to love this wind. Creatures above would let it take them wherever without using the energy in their wings.
The cows would come together and share body heat if the wind brought a chill.
Families would gather around their fires at night, sharing daily events, laughter, and thoughts about what the next day would have in store.
During the day, kids ran out into the fields and launched kites. Some kites were diamonds, some were circular. Some kites had tails, some had two handles. Some kites were red, blue, yellow, green, orange or purple. Some kites were homemade, which the kids drew their own design on. Kids flew their creativity high. As high as the wind would allow. Neighbours would see the colours flying and run over to launch their colours. The colours were always in the wind.
Meanwhile the machines invaded on backs of trucks, followed by cranes. They parked in unoccupied paddocks and were hoisted on their towers. They belonged to the Big Man. He came and raped the land and raised his flag.
The community didn’t notice, too busy looking at the colours in the sky.
The machines grab at the wind, pin it down and rips out its energy. This power is given to the Big Man who then sells it for quite a price to fat-men-in-suits. His product is energy, his factory is the earth and his slaves are armies of wind. When the factory is complete the community turn to see the cause of the shadow that’s now over them. The kites fall, breaking their frames as they hit the ground, and breaking hearts of the kids who made them. As soon as the first machine starts to spin, there is an uneasiness drifting through the air. The machines pollute the atmosphere. Not with gas or smoke. With sound.
The sound is a hum. Dogs nearby run back to their kennels with floppy ears and their tails between their legs. The people hold their heads as if they were about to explode in a microwave.
Now there are no birds.
The cows are now beef on a fat-man-in-a-suits dinner plate. In the houses there are no more stories told, no echoes of laughter. In the fireplace there are only ashes. On the table and chairs, the dust lies undisturbed. And as for the colours, they’ve been packed up and driven away in removalist vans.
• The morning sun peeps its head over the bare hill and opens my eyes to the day. There is no curtain to keep the light out. The brown window pane is like a picture frame, holding all the pink and orange wispy clouds. I don’t move my face from the pillow. My cheek is still asleep and sags down as I gaze out the window. The wind was fierce last night and my mind was restless.
I sit up on the edge of the mattress, rub the sand from the corner of my eyes. Yesterday’s clothes are scrunched up on the floor so I slip them over my bones.
In the kitchen I take a cereal bowl out and lean over it. The bottom of the bowl looks back at me and tells me I have no appetite. A strange state for a growing teenager.
As I pedal up the driveway I glance to my left at the towers. They ignore the south and face the north. An offshore wind.
Bike tyres hit the bitumen and I scale the ocean road down to the bay. The speed of the hill lifts up my wings and I take in the movement of the wind flowing over my body, dancing through my hair. I grab the handlebars again and lean into the bend.
The swell wraps around the cape today. Sandbanks below the water push the waves into shape, the wind opens them up with feathers of spray falling off the back. If this secret was any closer to the city it would be filled with black wet suited men, bobbing up and down between the waves.
Like a dart, I am home adjusting the surfboard rack on the side of my bike. I stuff a wetsuit and towel in a backpack and jog through the house to fetch my board.
A noise stops me in the lounge room, I take one look down and a feeling in my heart sends anxiety through my veins. I scream out to my parents and bash my fists at my brother’s door.
In the lounge room we huddle together around a green beanbag. Our tears soak into the hair of our dying dog. The Jack Russell’s protruding ribcage rises and falls. Rises and falls. The muscles in his jaw have deteriorated. The muscles in his legs have vanished. His breathing scatters gravel in his throat. His eyes are forward, they don’t understand. My family all rub hands along his body, whispering his name, Skruffy.
Skruffy.
Skruffy.
All too sudden Skruffy lifts up his neck towards the roof. He ends in a soft yelp.
Tears hit the ground harder, thicker. Skruffy is only 5 years old.
As the soul leaves the corpse, I leave the room, screaming in hopelessness, bouncing off walls and through never ending passages until I find my room. Rage enters my house. I throw my surfboard on the bed, grab the scissors off my desk and I stab. Frustration controls my swing, anger gets the better of me. Shards of fibreglass and foam rains over my room. Dad enters and grips my wrist. I kick at the board. I kick at the bed. I kick at the hurt. I kick at the pain. I kick at the loss. I kick at the world. Dad holds me tight and lowers me to the floorboards. I give up kicking and we rest, father and son, against the chest of drawers on the ground. Defeated.
•
The closets are bare. Books are swept off the desk. Sheets no longer surround the beds. Everything valuable, everything dear is being packed into boxes, suitcases. Storage. Our house is like a glass bottle with a ship inside. But now the ship is sailing away. To leave it as another empty glass bottle.
I throw the last of what I need in the van.
My brother is stressing at mum in the car. Something about how hard it is to move whilst in his final year of high school. Dad walks back from the bin. Two halves of a surfboard sticking out the top. His face showing the strain of a headache.
I do one last walk around the house. In the courtyard, that is where my young feet took their first steps. Along the driveway is where dad taught me to ride a bike. In the carport, that is where I learnt not to poke at bees. Memories.
In the car, I lean the corner of my forehead against the cold glass. The house shrinks behind me in the back window. Looking out I see the machines flick shadows across the whole land. My stomach tightens. The rest of the town is going to think we are crazy. Leaving our home because the machines that are close to our house are making us sick. We don’t know how or why, they just are. We didn’t have these problems before they arrived. How does everyone around us, not believe what is going on. I bring my hands to my eyes as we pass the bay. There is no way I can even think about saying goodbye to this place.
No family leaves their beloved home for no reason.
No family leaves their beloved home for no reason.
•
It’s the Big Man’s payday today. He goes for a walk in his harvest. The machines roar over him. He pats the side of one, like a ring leader pats a lion. He cups his hands as he looks back at the wasteland.
Black and white.
Sky and land.
The deserted houses sit hopelessly. Taking each blow of the wind like a school yard bully shoving a kid into a wall. The Big Man spots something.
A colour appears
Amidst the grey,
A kite and its handle
Flying away.
References: Ted Trainer, 3/2010, Marxist Theory; A brief introduction,
https://socialsciences.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/Marx.html