Forager by Peter R. Stone Page B

he’d come home and lose himself in a newspaper or the television. When I reached my adolescent years and shed my fear of him, we began to argue about nearly everything. When I flunked the year eleven exams and had to leave school, he flew into such a rage that he came within an inch of tearing my head off – literally. He didn’t know I’d failed deliberately, so had jumped to the conclusion that it was a result of slothfulness and that galled him all the more. If I’d told him the truth, he would have hit me, I’m sure of it.
    One of the greatest causes of contention between us was my choice of vocation. Father had lofty ideas for what I could do, and took offense at my choice of such a demeaning and dangerous job. Once we argued so vigorously that a neighbour banged on our door to complain. That was one of the most humiliating moments of my life, and an eye opener. I realised I could not keep living like this – arguing with my father one minute and put down by my older sister the next, so the day I turned twenty I rented a flat.
    My father didn’t like that, either. Took it like a personal attack accused me of abandoning the family. Getting married was the only justifiable reason for a child to leave their family, he had shouted in my face. All that did was convince me I’d made the right choice.
     
    When I got home after a short walk, I climbed the apartment block's ten flights of stairs up to the building’s flat roof, using the exercise to clear my mind and rid my body of tension.
    It was refreshingly cool up on the roof and comfortably shrouded in near-darkness. The only light sources were the light above the stairwell exit and the stars.
    I collected the disassembled parts of my contraband binoculars, which I had hidden in three different places on the roof, and fitted them back together. One advantage of my vocation was that I could find almost anything in the city ruins.
    I sat down on the long side of the roof that faced north-west and dangled my legs over the edge. (There was no guardrail.) I used the binoculars to zoom in on North End – sometimes I looked over the city walls at Melbourne’s darkened ruins, but spying on North End was more fun. It was like another world in there, with larger and better-furnished apartments. There were immaculately kept, multicolour brick footpaths instead of crumbling and cracked ones like ours, and jungle gyms built like castles in the school yards. There were cinemas with facades lit up with sparkling lights; nightclubs where you didn’t have to line up to gain access; and, to top it all off, no curfew. There were multistorey buildings devoted to scientific, genetic and engineering research and development, and the council offices themselves were magnificently opulent. Men and teenage boys wandered the paved streets as they chatted and headed to nightclubs to play cards, billiards, bowling, and drink.
    The clubs were all-male affairs, of course – no woman was permitted on the streets after dark, not even with a chaperone. The Founders created this rule, saying it was for our protection. That by keeping women at home after dark kept them safe from males who may be struggling with temptation. It also protected the males by removing the source of temptation. Yeah, right. I often thought of my mother and sisters, stuck at home, while we guys went out and hit the restaurants and clubs. Didn’t seem fair to me.
    I often wondered what my life would be like had I chosen to live in North End instead of out here. My life as it was, wasn’t a particularly happy or fulfilling one. There was a deep, aching hole in me that gnawed endlessly at my mind and emotions, threatening to pull me into a miry pit from which there was no escape. I hadn’t always been like that. Before the injury and operation, I was more positive and resilient. I was sure of it.
    The only time I felt at peace was when I was out there, rooting through the ruins looking for metals, and – ahem, doing