Life of .

Them: Hey I'm a hardcore gaymer I play heaps of stuff we should hang out

Me: oh cool that's awesome I'm studying game design games are so important to me games are art games are everything they are life it's so exciting to talk to someone who has a wide understanding of all the genres surely we will have a million things to talk about what do you play?

Them: Pokemon.

Me: ...Anything else?

Them: no lol why?

Me: ...

Them: ...

Me: ...

Them: ...

Me: ...

We tear through the undergrowth in the middle of the night, keeping our laughter low so as not to wake his parents. Our trek through the bushland is threatened by the divide of a river over which a tree has fallen. It’s a perfect bridge but my legs turn weak. I want to turn back, to wander further to the footbridge - but they know the lowlands better than me. In the end I have to accept this is the only way forward and to overcome my fear.

A friend who has already crossed the water finds a branch and extends it to me. I grasp it, shaking, twisting, and slowly snake my way across the fallen trunk.

I make it to the other side. All of us share a small celebration and a quick quip. We laugh loud, safely out of earshot, then we are off again to carve through the moonlit bushland. The contents of our backpacks clank and jangle as we hustle past the back of a church. I sweat with the feeling there is someone watching.

This town had phenomena. Lights in the sky, glowing shapes in the water, the eerie sounds of dragging chains and ghastly wanderers in the night. They were old, old Aboriginal grounds tied to ancient blood. There was once an asylum, destroyed in a fire. We saw things we could not understand. In particular, the recurring image of a black hooded boy standing at the side of the road. He would appear only in the darkest nights, when we were driving home from a movie or such. There he’d be, at the same intersection each time, but not each night. His appearance was random and it became a pleasant surprise, a treat of mystery in an otherwise black-and-white town. He never moved. He didn’t turn as we passed. He would appear, his back to us, and then... gone, like a wisp of smoke through an open window.

On Summer nights we would drive to the lake’s edge and climb the giant tree by the children’s playground. This tree was once taller, cut in half a long time ago. Now new branches reach for heaven and enshroud the top of the old trunk - creating a womb-like space sheltered from the chilling winds off the water. Here there is no sound, and through the growing canopy you can see the stars. They light the remnants of generations before us, of teenage spirits chasing permanency by etching their names into the wood.

Me: "k lol"