The things that change us.

It was a long time ago now, but it’s still a clear picture of events in my head.

It was the rainy season. Tropical rain, the kind that falls fat and heavy or like a curtain of small sharp arrows. The sound splatters like rounded vowels or roars like an approaching freight train.

On that day, it didn’t rain. Instead it was hot and claustrophobic with muggy intent. The birds cried out across the mountain side buried deep in the dense brush and we were ignorant of anything other than youth, childhood crushes and dreams of adolescent freedom.

Each year school arranged a student camp up into the mountains at the site of a missionary station. Our school and the American and German students at this large outpost would meet once or twice over the week to compete in sporting events, eat together and generally whisper and giggle about one another. The girls would wear their best outfits and try to act cool while carefully checking out the competition as well as the potential flirt fest, while the boys ran around with their shirts off bouncing, kicking or lobbing a ball of sorts.

I was 16. My friends and I were cool, we were a couple of years off graduating and were already drinking and smoking when our parents weren’t around. I’d forged a driver’s license and drove my friends around in my father’s car when he wasn’t around. We wore our school skirts tight and short and spent our lunch times playing sport or hanging out by the field to watch the boys play sport. I was just like every other teenager, trying hard so very hard to mask insane insecurities with acts of super-coolness.

That year on camp my friends and I took photos on the bus ride – we posed and laughed until our sides hurt. We felt free, we felt like the girls we wanted to be on American TV shows and magazines. While we giggled and laughed, we pretended that the world was at our feet when in reality it was very different. At home my wars never ended, they only abated long enough for the next eruption to be louder and larger. My mother spent much of her time crying and my father looking morose and angry. My siblings had long since left home and there certainly was no place like home. J struggled similarly. Her family didn’t have much money and her days involved school and caring for her little sister and brother. Her parents marriage was also fronted by the bleached white wooden cross borne by the Lutheran Church. Her family were missionaries and God and God alone was responsible for holding them together. N came from the perfect family. Her father was an intellect and University professor. Her mother – educated and a loving stay at home Mum. N and all her siblings were committed to caring for their littlest sister who had been born with greater challenges than most. They loved and cared for one another, but while N was happy with her family and books, her square nature and plump physique meant that while she excelled intellectually, socially she struggled.

We shared a cabin together way up in the mountains and on our first day we took to the local school basketball courts for an afternoon of ball sports. I loved to play any kind of sport and while J was an excellent swimmer, out of water her best sports were more to do with hitting balls rather than navigating a moving object. N on the other hand had no sporting skills whatsoever. While we played, we checked out the competition and eyed up the potential. Some of the girls were exceptionally beautiful in an American Sweet Valley High kind of way, we stared at them behind cheap sun-glasses and noted the way they wore their hair and makeup.

Later that evening we heard the sound of a pick-up truck pulling into the camp drive. A bunch of local kids who’d seen us on the courts had come looking for me. I was confused – they’d asked for me by name and when I got to the truck I scoured they faces for some recollection. I just stood there, nervous and babbling something about hello and erm, what did they want. I recognised one of the boys from the game we’d played – he was tall and a handsome mix-raced Japanese American kid. We’d boisterously pointed him out and watched him work the court with agile grace. I stood in-front of them waiting for them to say something. The teachers came out and invited them to join us. It was humiliating – we were singing songs and doing skits. I wanted the ground to open up and eat me whole. Eventually they left, but not before hot-boy asked for my telephone number. I laughed – it was one thing to get a lift round to a friend’s house, but what would I do with a boy who lived 5 hours away by 4WD from my home town. I gave it anyway… small towns mean that little happens so you take what excitement you can get, where ever you can get it from.

The next day we prepared for a hike. It was a standard requirement. We hiked into the mountains on every trip up here, no matter what grade you were or what the weather was like – our teachers made sure that we got some exercise. Each year without fail the guides vanished and the entire mountainside would start ringing with the sound of teenage students shouting ‘coooooo-eeeeeeeee’ in an attempt to locate someone. Each year someone put a hand, leg and even bottom into a bush of stinging nettles and spent the rest of the hike grimacing in agony.

It was humid and wet from the rain the night before and while the morning sun beat down on the mountainside there were numerous pools of caked over mud that quickly split apart with the weight of a foot. Before long attempts to save white sneakers stopped and most everyone had fallen at least once, slipping and sliding on hands, knees, backsides and stomachs. The mood eventually shifted to one of exhaustion and annoyance. Soon many of the students were lost and while we yelled out to parties ahead or behind us the responses never came. I had gotten separated from both N and J and was trekking along with two girls from my class who I knew, but never hung out with. R stumbled along in front of me, while P kept thudding to the ground on the path behind me. We could hear one of the other girls in our class singing softly from the bottom of the small incline we’d just navigated and as we turned a corner we were confronted by two men in traditional dress. They wore what we referred to as ass-grass (which was a braided string that sat like a belt around their waists and held two bundles of grass – one in front and one in back). They were naked aside and had heavily tattooed faces with large holes through their septum’s and ear-lobes. One older and one younger they approached us and we stepped aside on the path to let them by. As they passed I nodded and wished them a happy afternoon in Pidgen. The elder one smiled and responded in kind, while the younger one stopped for a short time, partially reaching out to touch me, but changing his mind when he saw me flinch. They passed us and we sighed with relief, wandering what we would have done had they wanted to take one of us deep into the bush. No one could hear us and no one appeared to know where we were.

As we marched on a few more paces I could hear the girl behind us stop and impart the same afternoon greetings and ask whether these men had seen any other students up ahead. I was conscious of the birds and the sound of mud squelching beneath my feet, I could feel the weight of the mud as it caked in small boats around the soles of my shoes and smell the damp of the jungle as it stretched out before us. I was tired and my muscles ached and I wondered whether there was any strength left to pick myself up out of the next mud hole I fell into. And then as if someone had slapped us all to attention, we three stopped dead in our tracks and spun around, eyes wide and hearts racing. We heard her screaming before we heard the sound of her crashing around in the brush. We started to run and just like we heard her, she heard us and screamed out – ‘please, please, don’t leave me’ – between sobs and screams to her assailants to leave her be. I stopped and was torn between my fear and the knowledge that we were abandoning her. I could feel my whole body want to run and my spirit and conscience demanding I stay. R and P stopped to look at me, their faces covered in the feelings that circled around my head and body. They wanted to run - we all wanted to run. They were pleading with their eyes and I with mine. We agreed they should run! Run fast up the hill, run until they found someone, get teachers and male students, send them back and tell them to hurry. They ran and I turned and followed the sound of her screams. I fell into the clearing and saw them standing over her. She’d pulled a stick from of the branches and was waving it at them, trying to whip them every time they got closer. The younger of the two men held a spear in his hand and madness in his eyes, while the other one stared at her lying in the mud with a smile playing on his lips. They didn’t speak, they just advanced on her. I started to yell. I took a large boulder off the ground and held it in one hand while standing over her and pointing at them with the other. I yelled in a deep and ferocious voice and every time they moved forward so did I threatening to throw my rock. She was screaming and clawing at my legs. In her panic and exhaustion her legs were cramping, contorted and twisting in strange and unusual positions. The pain was excruciating for her, she was crying, unable to run away from these men, unable to even stand up. Everything slowed down – I could hear the rustling of the leaves as the wind blew and the sound of a lizard scrambling through dead leaves. I tried to crouch down and push her feet back up against themselves to alleviate the cramps, I wanted to yell at her! ‘WHAT??? I can’t do both so which one do you want me to do? Save your feet or save us both?’ I didn’t, I tried to help her and tried to stop them and each time my back was turn those men would step closer – still smiling, still holding their spears at shoulder height threatening to throw them. I was like a robot:

Shout
Threaten with rock
Bend down – rock still poised
Drop rock, grab foot
Massage cramp
Grab rock, drop foot
Stand up
Shoult
Threaten with rock….

My adrenaline was racing as we did our dance, them - forward, me - forward, her - screaming, me - squatting and massaging, them - forward, me – up…and as the dance was nearing the point of no return… the bushes parted and through them came T yelling and hollering in pidgin. Those two men looked at each other, shrugged, lowered their spears and disappeared into the bush. Just like that, they were gone.

I dropped my rock and turned to T, he reached out to put his arms around me just as I collapsed to the ground and began to shake. The adrenaline was gone, the 100 mile and hour thoughts stopped, the sound of the bush turned into a low, numb humming sound and I kept looking at him and her and then at the track were those two men had vanished with confusion and shock on my face.

We all knew without saying what those men wanted. On that day we had been bound by our courage and fear and as we dusted ourselves off, I wiped away tears from my face and didn’t speak. We began to pick our way through the jungle in silence until we reached the other end. I never told my parents, the words did little justice to the feeling, to the instant knowledge, to the line that you cannot verbalise out loud, but which is as clear as crystal in your head - we survived something that was nearly out of our control.

We survived.

This one's for Z-man

If you have a fairly active imagination and can see the possibility that a book like 1984 or the film 28 days later could really occur (granted these are in two very different leagues of documented entertainment) you might forgive me for wondering silently if such a thing is happening right here. A sweeping terrorist attack of the chemical kind which slowly takes over the bodies of humans making them sad and sorry depressed creatures with no spark or hope left.

A bit dramatic, but…

Of late I’ve sat in my car in the mornings, making the journey to work and wondering why the shadow of heavy oppression won’t lift off my chest. The other day I went to the counter of a Japanese takeaway to order a healthy lunch and nearly burst into tears when my brown rice and salmon took 30 minutes. I could feel my blood boiling and my heart racing. I felt the tears begin to sting at my eyes and the feeling of being ill treated as a paying customer and watching others who’d come long after me leave with their hot and cold meals bagged and presented within minutes of their arrival.

I feel like I’ve got shackles that hold the edges of me together and they are straining against the pressure that is building within me. I feel the inhalation of my lungs stopping well before my chest so that it never feels as though I’ve taken a full breath. I’m tired and impatient. I’m angered by small and insignificant events and then angrier to note that I’m angered by such small and insignificant things.

I’m not fighting any causes, but battling for principles! I’m terrified of being alone and desperate to be left in peace. I’m smiling on the outside and black and dark and grinding my teeth on the inside.

I’d like to pretend it isn’t a coincidence. Funny that 5 of my closest friends have come to me in confidence and admitted they’ve thought of or have begun to see a doctor for what feels like desperation, depression and general feelings of undeniable unhappiness.

What is it we’re so unhappy about. We’ve food, money and love. I’ve a dog that I’ve adopted from the pound who has accepted us as hers and brought so much warmth and laughter into our home. I have a good job and a new home that we’ve decorated to our tastes with room to do more, but enough done that we love it as is. What is it that is so wrong that I feel so horribly out of synch and so terribly Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I’ve begun dreaming vividly. Last night I had such a bad dream, mostly because it was so drawn out and detailed. I thought dreams only lasted up to 10minutes… this can’t be as I’m certain my slumbered agony went on for hours.

I’ve tried massages, alone time, reading, sleeping, crying, laughing, excessive drinking and eating. I’ve tried lashing out and holding in. I’ve screamed and sung, whistled and hissed… I’ve ticked off a dozen tricks that generally work and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to bite down hard and let it be what it is. A long, bumpy road with the occasional car crash moment and hope that eventually it’ll lead somewhere I actually want to be.

Here goes nothing.