Rambling Rose

"I'm late!"

Life always passes over me. 'I'm late' is just another phrase for situation normal, absolutely fluffed up.

"Did you put in your application, Rosie ?" An unnecessary question, probably motivated by a sense of duty.

I give my usual frown and grimace; a sigh, an 'I don't care but will try to appear concerned' look.

The office crew is sniffing each other out. They're silently musing on the expected unfairness, their anticipated realisation of failure; judging nepotism or brown-nosing from each participant. Jones from service and repair has been studying his policies. Gretel has finished her certificate 4 in admin. Will is confident and also disgruntled because he has been at the same desk for three years and feels he deserves the promotion. Georgia has made coffee for the PA to the director every day for the last two months and today has home made chocolate brownies.

The bright young things wander confidently, secretive, holding clipboards, adjusting their ties and hair clips.

It's a yearly raise of 20k and not to be ignored, but I, most studiously ignored it. The primitive yearning for some freedom has snared its unrealistic teeth right into my IT life. Hell, I don't even know what the word means. I haven't read Jack Kerouac but sense that this might be one of life's moments when Kerouac isn't just a writer, Kerouac is where I want to be.

Pens, wads of reports, teabags, coffee bags, a banana already populated with several tiny drosophilas, laptop, laptop charger, some screwed up piece of something possibly a chocolate wrapper; everything into the locker. Close the door tightly before anything falls out. There may be war once the position is filled.

It's a late winter, but June in the highlands is starkly beautiful, misty, haunting even. The trains have all left and I park my red Subaru into a free parking lot. The sky is an empty grey slate and the new moon barely lights the smooth concrete platform. I walk carefully to the gravelled exit, look into the darkness, and start walking beside Highway No. 1.

Nobody would know if I am man or woman as my hair is tucked into a black beanie. Nobody will try to stop for me and I swagger, trying to look dangerous and unwelcome. My wind jacket is old and barely covers my hips, my trackie dacks grey, also old.

Just another vagabond itinerant wandering the roads.

I step purposefully, too quickly, and slow myself. The journey, not the destination, I say.

The crunch of the gravel beneath my rubber soled gym shoes is satisfying. Each step releases its perfume of rain, oil, and petrol. I breathe its nourishment like a four year old who has escaped from the front yard onto the street for the first time. A dog howls and then barks, and the cars gradually dissipate.

At some point I realise I am alone, even from any flow of traffic. It is eleven pm. I have been walking for three hours. I breathe even more deeply; the air has chilled. A faint silhouette of bushland lines the horizon and a small window twinkles somewhere on a hillside. As I walk, this small friendly light disappears behind a ridge.

A kookaburra announces something; it's time we all just went to sleep now.

I will keep walking, I will keep walking until I want to stop. More hours pass by as I contemplate the stiffness in my calves, the ache in my arches and the spots where my jacket does not cover my legs properly. The sky has started to reveal stars, hundreds of different sized lights, satellites drifting through them. Betelgeuse and Sirius, Pleiades, Orions Belt, familiar sky landmarks that are warm to the touch. Homey reminders that I am not completely out of my mind. Excitement suddenly makes me look up and revel in the starry expanse.

Some loose barbed wire behind a ditch at the side of the road looks promising and I duck through it. I am starting to feel tired. An irrigation ditch with straight sides has been carved into the bare landscape, its straight sides starkly incongruent with the rocky outcrops and overgrazed land. A breeze has started up and snow must have fallen in the mountains as the wind is cold. I lie carefully in the ditch, careful not to wet my shoes, marvelling at the convenience of a raised bed, however hard. Staring into the skies I think, ' this is where I should have an epiphany. But what will it be? I am a traveller, a nomad, a gypsy on the road. This is where enlightenment and realisation comes from.

The cold is biting deep and I cover spots alternatively when the pain gets too much; first my knees, then my torso, but never everything all at once.

Looking imploringly into the stars I let all sense of self leave me, my mind floating into that vast canopy. The cold makes me feel a bit sorry for myself and I feel not just alone, but lonely.

I think I slept, my icy dreams interspersed with awkward rearranging of the useless wind jacket. The romance of my zero gravity bed just a cold hard slant with pointy pebbles pressing into my back and hips.

A crackle of nearby dried grass, the swoosh of saltbush being brushed past, a movement so close that I lose my breath in terror. I jolted awake .

Was this near where those hitchhikers had disappeared? What if there was a man with a hatchet studying me, waiting for me, a gun, an intent to harm me? My heart was in my ears and I breathed noiselessly, trying to stop breathing so fast, I sink into the hard clay, just another boulder, nobody here.

After a half hour of immobile silence it seemed that the killer would have moved by now. But I slowly lifted my chin to survey what was behind me, above the ditch; expecting any moment my life could be taken from me.

A snort in my ear and a scuffle from all around where my head lay, a dozen sheep were startled from where they had been staring at me. They stood back gazing at the intruder, and slowly backed off.

I was safe. The sheep were my friends, my protectors. They trotted away quickly now that it was obvious what this warm soft bodied thing was.

I stayed the next two days in a rented room, happily proud of the adventure. I even called Jones and congratulated him on his new interest in company policy; surely this point will be noted by management as a sign he is a contender, in the offing. We agreed that it was a done deal, Georgia's coffee making was obsequiously good and she was probably sleeping with the director anyway. I comforted Gretel and said she was far prettier than Georgia and had ethics, which Georgia patently did not. I put my hand on Will's shoulder and smiled. He'd get there soon and was deserving.

I might even explain my journey to Jones one day but thought the better of it. I don't think he would understand. I barely could make sense of it myself.