Islander

The little islands are dark, slightly tarnished—ambergris, blue vitriol, rust, deep slumbersome black-brown hues in a night-lake of midnight blue. The Wanderer sits alone on the cliff, warming old hands over a dancing yellow fire and his food. He has placed his weapons by the fire, and the fire’s light dances over them as well.

It is comfortable here in the Archipelago, he muses. There’s no stress. Back to nature, except that you can have modern conveniences whenever you want. He pulls the spit from the flames, lays it swiftly on a clean, flat stone, sucks his fingers. This is a good life. He looks with Dreamtime-seeing eyes out over the twilight sea, waits for the food to cool.

This is a good life, he repeats, with much satisfaction. He tenderly caresses his flesh, feeling the invisible dents where flesh has rejected bullet and healed. A good life for a Wanderer, this is. In the distance there is uneasiness. The centre is not at peace. But that is not his problem.

—excerpted from 'Archipelago', c.1990