Paradise Lost

Brad

The beach is the main drawcard of this town, or so they say. I lived here my whole life, until a few years ago when I went to University in Brisbane, and now, at twenty-one years old, I'm right back where I started. But apparently, I don’t get a say in what constitutes a drawcard. 

The coastline is protected by K’gari, the largest sand island in the world. Heritage listed. A real gem if you’re into that sort of thing. Camping, fishing, mosquitoes, sand flies, wild dogs, sand in your shoes, sand in your hair, sand in your jocks. Wet sand. Dry sand. Burning hot sand. Some people like sand, apparently. To those people, I say just try a life without sand. You’ll never look back. 

The air is so still here, it’s eerie. It sets every hair on my body on edge. How is there no breeze at all? Just still air. It’s not right. It’s just creepy. With nothing moving around me, I can feel everything that’s happening inside my body. My heart beating. My lungs expanding and contracting. The slow course of the blood meandering through my veins. Did you know that there is a gentle tingle everywhere on your body, all the time? When you’re distracted you don’t notice it. But when you’re in a place like this, where nature is giving you nothing, you’ve got no choice but to know yourself that intimately. I don’t want to do that. It freaks me out. It makes me think about my mortality. Sure, my heart’s beating now, but what about the next beat, and the next, and the next after that? I start waiting for the next one, and when you do that, it somehow feels like it’s not a given. Like maybe it will just- stop. Maybe I shouldn’t have become a paramedic. It probably feeds my anxiety a little.

Then, there’s the quiet. Aside from the blood rushing through my ears, all I can hear is the soft caress of the waves- no, not waves- ripples of the ocean on the shore. This town isn’t even edgy enough to have waves. Waves would be too hip. Too cool. Too happening. 

You know what this town does have though? Seagulls. Just when I think it’s so quiet that I might lose my mind, I’m tipped over the edge by the startling squawk of the chihuahua of the sea soaring overhead. Wait, do they soar? Or do they just kind of loiter through the sky? No, they bob. That’s what they do. They bob through the sky. They remind me of the sort of person who strikes up a conversation with you in a lift and then doesn’t know when to stop. The doors open, and they’re still talking. You know you have to get out, because you’ve reached your floor, but what do you do? Just walk away mid-sentence?  That’s the seagull, bobbing there above me, even though it long ago outstayed it’s welcome. Sorry, mate, I’m all out of small talk. Make yourself scarce. 

Anyway, thanks to that seagull, my nerves are shot now. It’s quiet again, and all I can think about is where the next squawk is going to come from. I imagine this is what it would be like to have a stalker. One that you know is there, because they haven’t quite perfected the art of being inconspicuous. 

Down on the playground, a kid’s just fallen off the swing. He was probably too little to be balanced precariously on a strip of rubber suspended by two metal chains. He should have been in a proper seat. Now his mum has got him, and I’m hoping his piercing cries will stop soon so that I can get back to that peace and quiet I was loving so much. Any time now would be good. Still going? Great. Good lungs on the kid. 

Warren is quiet. He’s not one of those chatty old guys. So, when, out of the blue, he asks me if I want an ice-cream, I almost wet myself. 

‘Yeah, I’ll get us some ice-creams, mate,’ I say. Warren tries to give me money. I laugh at him, and call back, ‘My shout,’ as I make my way across the road to the ice-cream parlour, while my colleague, Justin, waits with Warren. Not much he can do about it from his stretcher. I’ll bet he hates that. He seems like the sort of bloke who would usually shout. 

***

Warren

The beach is the main drawcard of this town. I’ve lived here my whole life, and I can tell you, there is no place on earth more likely to be God’s own back yard than this, right here. It’s one of the most peaceful coastlines in the country. Sheltered by K’gari, the largest sand island in the world. K’gari means ‘paradise’ in the traditional language of the Butchulla people, the First Nations people of this area. 

They weren’t wrong. The lakes of K’gari are some of the most stunning in the world. Crystal clear, each unique. My fondest memories are of camping there with my family when I was a boy. Dad would take me and my brothers fishing on the coastline of Eight Mile Beach. There were sharks, so you couldn’t swim, but I tell you, the fishing was bloody good. I caught a barramundi the length of my arm once. I’ll never feel the sand between my toes again in this lifetime, but I’ll never forget the feeling of it that day. The fine particles, squelching between my toes as I jumped up and down with pure ecstasy. We cooked Old Mate over a fire, and our campsite was a favourite with the dingoes that night. This was before they put the fences up around the campsites. You just had to brave it. But gosh, what magnificent creatures they are, even though you know they could maul you in a second if they chose to. I shared my barra with a pup. You’re not meant to do that, but when they look at you like if you don’t, then you’ll be the meal, you go with your gut. 

It's still this afternoon. I think it’s meant to be like this for the last time. There’s nothing to distract me from being right here, right now. No breeze to temper the warmth of the sun on my skin, or to muffle the sound of the water lapping at the shore. That sound is like the pulse in my veins. I’ve sat and listened to nothing but that sound for hours on end here, in this very spot. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve spent longer in this state. I call it bliss. I’m sure it’s what we’re put on Earth to do. Just listen, breathe and feel alive. The last few months that I’ve been too unwell to leave the house, I’ve craved that gentle rhythm. 

A seagull squawks overhead, and it makes me jump slightly. When everything else is so still and so quiet, that squawk, that makes my heart race and my blood pump with a little more enthusiasm than it can usually muster, is the reminder that I’m alive- only just, but still alive.

I can’t help but laugh at the cheeky bugger. He’s going to hang around. They like to do that. They remind me of that friend you only see once in a blue moon, but when you do see them, it feels so familiar, and so right, that they just stay. They bob there, and you run out of things to talk about, but they just wait, patiently, and inevitably, the comfortable silence is broken by another old anecdote to share, or a trivial observation that sends you both off onto a new tangent. Friends like that are worth their weight in gold. 

Down on the playground, a child has just fallen from the swing. When you’re a child, swinging on a swing is just about the closest feeling to flying. If you had one of those dads who cared more for your fun than for your survival, and every time you said ‘higher’, he said, ‘how high?’, then you’d know what I mean. Falling was inevitable, but it was worth it. As long as you had one of those mums waiting at the edge of the playground to scoop you up. One of those glorious mothers, with a soft heart, a soft body, and the strength and resilience of a mountain. I married one of those women. 

The boy’s mother has scooped him up into her arms now. He cries because he doesn’t understand it yet. That there’s no better feeling than someone who loves you more than themselves, holding you close when you’re hurting. Making you- no, forcing you- to believe that you are okay, even when you think you might not be. Someone who believes that you will come out the other side stronger. I’m getting carried away, I know. I do when I think about my wife. She didn’t only hold our children like that. She held me like that. No matter how much I hurt, she held me, and somehow, the next day dawned, and I was still there, and I was okay. She’s in a better place now. I will be seeing her soon. I suspect she’ll be holding me on my way there.

This young man sitting beside me could use a hug like that right now. I’ve never seen such a sullen face on a lad for whom the world is his oyster. I can’t give him a motherly hug, but I know what I can do. I can shout him an ice-cream.

***

Brad

‘How long have you lived here, mate? In the Bay?’ Warren asks me. His hand shakes slightly as I hand him the cone, piled high with mint choc chip ice-cream. 

‘My whole life. I studied in Brisbane, but now I’m back. Believe it or not, it’s hard to get work as a paramedic down there, but they’re desperate up here.’

‘Crazy, isn’t it? How people from the city just can’t understand the beauty of a place like this. They think they’ve got it all, down there in the hustle and bustle.’

‘I guess they find it boring in a town like this.’ What I mean is, I find it excruciatingly dull, but I can’t say that to Warren. He loves the place, that much is obvious. 

‘Boring?’ He chuckles softly. 

‘Yeah. There’s nothing to do here.’

The smile on his face is like he’s sharing an in-joke with someone, but aside from Justin, who’s in the van, there’s no one else here, and I’m not in on it.

‘Exactly. There’s nothing to do, so you can just be. That’s what we’re meant to do, mate. Just. Be.’ 

Right. Just ‘be’. Like that’s not boring.

‘The shame of it is, most people don’t realise that the ‘doing’ isn’t the real thing until it’s too late,’ he says.

‘I wonder if I’ll be as wise as you when I’m living out my final days,’ I muse. 

‘I think wisdom almost exclusively belongs to those whose days are numbered, and those lucky few who somehow realise how to live like that before they have to start the count down.’

Now, I smile. I don’t grin, of course. It’s a wry smile. This old man sounds like a proper sage, and maybe he is. Maybe I’m just not in the right frame of mind to hear it.

‘There was a time when I felt like you did about this town. When I was a young man, it didn’t seem to have a lot going on. I wanted adventure, and excitement. I wanted women who I hadn’t known since I was seven years old.’ He holds up his left hand, the one that isn’t holding his ice-cream. He looks at the gold band on his ring finger. ‘I remember the first time my wife smiled at me. She’d just pulled my trousers down while I hung from the monkey bars.’ 

He chuckles again. It sparks a coughing fit. I hand him a tissue, and he wipes the blood-stained saliva from his lips. 

‘Somewhere along the line, I found paradise. Not the beach, the sunsets or even the fishing. That’s the surface level stuff. The real paradise is the one you come to know over time. The one that exists only in the moment, right at the interface of your consciousness, and the place you’re in.’

He winces slightly. Pain. His morphine is wearing off. We’ll have to go soon.

‘That place is where your happiness lives. It’s right here, you know. You don’t have to go anywhere else. But if you do, it will be right there, too. Only if you let yourself notice it. I believe it is a little easier to notice in a place like this, though, where you’re reminded constantly of the perfection of the things you have absolutely no control over. The ocean. The sky. The seagulls.’

Warren starts coughing again. Maybe the cold of the ice-cream isn’t great for his chest. I don’t think he cares. ‘I’m counting on it being where I am in a few days’ time.’

‘Should I be sad, Warren?’ I ask. ‘That you’ll never experience this again, once I take you to the hospital?’ 

‘Oh, no. I am the luckiest dying man on Earth, to spend this moment here. This will see me through the rest of this life, and beyond. I am happy.’

***

Warren passed away peacefully a few days later. I wouldn’t usually find out about something like that. My job was to make the transfer, from his home to the hospital, for end-of-life care. I knew Warren for all of a couple of hours. But someone must have been watching when we stopped, and realised what was going on. They took a photo, and we ended up in the local paper. Once that happened, I was bound to get an update on Warren. 

I’m sitting at the end of the pier. It took me an age to get to the end. God only knows why they thought they had to make it so long. It seems like someone on the Council was flexing. Or overcompensating. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not implying anything about the size of the mayor’s appendage. What I’m saying is, ‘Council regulations may prevent us building up any higher than six storeys in this town but check out the length of our pier.’

The sun is only just keeping the horizon at bay from swallowing it up. To my left, the sky is filled with blues and purples. To my right, it’s filled with oranges and reds. It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever experienced. How can that be? It’s as though whoever built this pier knew there was an exact balance point between the two and wanted to drive home a point. That magic really exists, or there really is a God, or perfection isn’t impossible to attain. Because this is perfection. 

There’s a seagull bobbing overhead. I haven’t cursed it yet. A kid who’s fishing with his dad has just got a bite, and he’s shrieking like he’s just won the lotto. It’s not hurting my ears like it normally would. The air is still. I can feel my heartbeat. It beats, and beats, and beats. Maybe it will just keep going, for now. In this moment, I suspect I might be happy here.