over Hulun Nur, to Cheng Shanweiâs Swan Lake. On lonely roads the old woman ransacked the nesting material of sweet swans running away from her over the ice on Dalinor Lake.
The old man and woman daydreamed themselves into every swan image on earth, and off they went again. There they go â la, la, la, the wild girl Oblivia whinged under her breath, excluded from entering their world of knowledge. So fair enough to travel in talk, about what it was like being among a pandemonium of snakes while wading barefoot and broke into old desert ponds covered with tumbleweed, to find a black-beak Whistling Swan with its head curled under its wing asleep, frozen to death. In the end it was always the same. No swan. Not the one she was expecting. Flat broke from renting hire cars, driving them until they become rust buckets. Finally! Their journey ended at the river where a poet carried a black-necked swan in his arms that was too weak to breathe. Yes, ode indeed, lost swan. Then the old woman and the Harbour Master each crawled back into their own separate, quiet dry caves dug somewhere deep in their minds. A silent place where each had their own swan blessed with flowers and fruit carved into granite grey brains.
He has the best intuition , the old woman said. Bella Donna was often full of her own gloating and fandangoing about geography and reminded the girl that she and the Harbour Master were very much alike. They were peas in the same pod. Exactly similar! Both had fled countries. Identical. He had always known the time to go too, uncanny, just like swans. Which goes to show that Aboriginal people who put their minds to it, can track anywhere. She could not praise him enough. She even continued rejoicing about the Harbour Masterin her sleep, high praising the likes of him for his natural intuition about migratory routes, immigrating cycles and so on. It was for these reasons she had found a friend to talk to out here in a swamp that was in the middle of nowhere. This is why he is very famous. Heâs the full packet, you betcha. And all thatâ¦
Well! Nothing much comes marching in on thin air, even though the old woman was relentless in her belief that somewhere over the vast oceans lying between her and the old world, the grandest white bird of all laboured in flight to reach her. But what did its continued absence mean? She could not understand it. Or why she was being denied her only wish. The only legacy she had left. Had she lost the ability to call her dead countryâs swan? Bella Donna offered the only possible explanation: Because it was dead too. The Harbour Master had to agree: Died on its way. Fallen from the sky .
Like a proper English-speaking child, the voiceless Oblivia learnt to sit straight-backed at the dinner table and chew fish, while contemplating the adult world talking themselves silly with their stories. In her mind she mused, Brain rust rent-a-car mouths. Car dead. Brain dead. Arenât there enough black swans here, all nesting in rusted car bodies dumped amongst the reeds? And together they go: Toot! Toot!
It took her no trouble to imagine the bird falling from the sky. She could see its body floating in any stretch of ocean that lay beyond the horizon â even though she had never seen the sea herself. She skipped a heartbeat. Any thought of distance did that. Her heart almost stopped beating every time she had to listen to their talk about travelling overseas to see swans. She was more comfortable with closer geography, with what lay in front of the horizon, as far as the top of the sand mountain, and into the ocean of the Harbour Masterâs stomach. She smiled at the gargoyle with a small white down feather sticking out from the corner of his mouth.
Bella Donnaâs world of exhausted journeying continued to shrink until it became so small, there was only space left for her one lost white swan. It loomed ever larger in her mind, until finally, her mind contained nothing
The old man and woman daydreamed themselves into every swan image on earth, and off they went again. There they go â la, la, la, the wild girl Oblivia whinged under her breath, excluded from entering their world of knowledge. So fair enough to travel in talk, about what it was like being among a pandemonium of snakes while wading barefoot and broke into old desert ponds covered with tumbleweed, to find a black-beak Whistling Swan with its head curled under its wing asleep, frozen to death. In the end it was always the same. No swan. Not the one she was expecting. Flat broke from renting hire cars, driving them until they become rust buckets. Finally! Their journey ended at the river where a poet carried a black-necked swan in his arms that was too weak to breathe. Yes, ode indeed, lost swan. Then the old woman and the Harbour Master each crawled back into their own separate, quiet dry caves dug somewhere deep in their minds. A silent place where each had their own swan blessed with flowers and fruit carved into granite grey brains.
He has the best intuition , the old woman said. Bella Donna was often full of her own gloating and fandangoing about geography and reminded the girl that she and the Harbour Master were very much alike. They were peas in the same pod. Exactly similar! Both had fled countries. Identical. He had always known the time to go too, uncanny, just like swans. Which goes to show that Aboriginal people who put their minds to it, can track anywhere. She could not praise him enough. She even continued rejoicing about the Harbour Masterin her sleep, high praising the likes of him for his natural intuition about migratory routes, immigrating cycles and so on. It was for these reasons she had found a friend to talk to out here in a swamp that was in the middle of nowhere. This is why he is very famous. Heâs the full packet, you betcha. And all thatâ¦
Well! Nothing much comes marching in on thin air, even though the old woman was relentless in her belief that somewhere over the vast oceans lying between her and the old world, the grandest white bird of all laboured in flight to reach her. But what did its continued absence mean? She could not understand it. Or why she was being denied her only wish. The only legacy she had left. Had she lost the ability to call her dead countryâs swan? Bella Donna offered the only possible explanation: Because it was dead too. The Harbour Master had to agree: Died on its way. Fallen from the sky .
Like a proper English-speaking child, the voiceless Oblivia learnt to sit straight-backed at the dinner table and chew fish, while contemplating the adult world talking themselves silly with their stories. In her mind she mused, Brain rust rent-a-car mouths. Car dead. Brain dead. Arenât there enough black swans here, all nesting in rusted car bodies dumped amongst the reeds? And together they go: Toot! Toot!
It took her no trouble to imagine the bird falling from the sky. She could see its body floating in any stretch of ocean that lay beyond the horizon â even though she had never seen the sea herself. She skipped a heartbeat. Any thought of distance did that. Her heart almost stopped beating every time she had to listen to their talk about travelling overseas to see swans. She was more comfortable with closer geography, with what lay in front of the horizon, as far as the top of the sand mountain, and into the ocean of the Harbour Masterâs stomach. She smiled at the gargoyle with a small white down feather sticking out from the corner of his mouth.
Bella Donnaâs world of exhausted journeying continued to shrink until it became so small, there was only space left for her one lost white swan. It loomed ever larger in her mind, until finally, her mind contained nothing
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