Narrow slice of cleared forest. Crack of metal under boot leather. A disused railway line. Between the tarnished tracks, a hornet and a hairy spider duel, and he wonders why. Why one insect must die? Why the farmhouse is broken? Why the railway no longer runs? He glances at his father, who is scanning the trees, then returns to the insect battle. The spider wins, drags its victim across the tracks. He remembers the hornet winning. And the weapon he holds now is a 22.
They walk towards the lake. Try to identify the species of the ducks. But they are too far away. Too far away to shoot. He’s glad.
Yet, he has killed.
That day, skin-diving off a pier, when he had hitchhiked down the coast with a workmate one summer holiday. It was so easy, the fish lying on a scrap of sandy bottom bare of seaweed, waiting for the spear, waiting for him to show it to his new friends on the pier. He took it home. Cleaned it. Boned it, too, though no one showed him how. It stayed in the fridge for a week before he threw it out. He turned vegetarian.
Looking around, he notices the company has thinned even further. If this is death, where do the missing ones go? He starts to talk to the warrior, but no words come. He slaps the warrior’s arm for attention. No reaction.
The mist explodes into a jungle fire fight. He sees himself charging through mud and ferns, machine-gun blazing. Yet, he never joined up because of his bad eyesight. The closest he came to combat was in martial arts, though he didn’t like sparring as much as teaching others the moves and the reasons why.
