Short story: Coda, by Eileen Merriman

2026-02-06 - 16:08

The sky was an apocalypse in slow motion. The sun simmered on the horizon, spitting out the last of its heat. Rhys didn’t know why he was bothering to walk. Radiating from him in all directions was red dirt, termite mounds, scrubby vegetation that defied the laws of nature. He could die out here. It was a fact he’d known when he first set out for Darwin; just another drifter blowing his way north, tumbleweed. At the time he’d barely cared, but now he wasn’t so sure. All he needed was a road train to take him all the way to Katherine. There were springs there, he’d read, waterholes with cool, cool water. He closed his eyes for a moment, imagining it. I’d drink and drink and drink. He coughed, spat pink-tinged saliva. If he didn’t know better, he’d think it was blood, but the red dirt got into everything. Rhys fumbled for his hydro-pack tube, sucked down lukewarm fluid. He didn’t dare check the level in the bladder. Never go out with less than ten litres of water, a local had told him. And that was in a vehicle. Do you have a death wish, Rhys? Is that what it is? Yes. No. Maybe. He turned his head from side to side, beacon-like, seeking, listening, feeling for the vibrations of an approaching vehicle. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Why wasn’t there more traffic on this bloody road? He shouldn’t have had that nap, but the unexpected patch of shade had been irresistible. And he was so tired. He’d been tired for months, ever since he’d broken up with Lucy. He’d trotted out the usual cliches: it’s not you, it’s me; que sera, sera. Yes, Rhy, it is you. So bloody self-destructive. She was right of course. Didn’t know a good thing until it was gone. Another cliché. He could write a song about it, suspected it’d already been written countless times. Why were most songs about love; lost and found and everything in between? Because that’s all there is. When you really get down to it, that’s all anyone wants. “Piss off,” Rhys rasped at the ever-present voice in his head, which was getting louder as the hours wore on. What kind of fool would set out on foot from Alice Springs, destination fifteen hundred kilometres away? Fool with a death wish, that’s who. The sun plunged, like a stone. Gone-burger. The cars would stop coming now, not that he’d seen one for hours. No one drove after dusk out here, not the locals anyway — too much chance of hitting something large, like a camel or a kangaroo. But a road train, yeah, they travelled all times of day and night. So where were they? Rhys slowed, came to a halt. Set his pack down, lying it horizontal, and sat on it. Contemplated his knees. Took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair, as wild and dry as the tussock in front of him. “End of the road,” he croaked. He fingered a crack in the corner of his mouth. What he’d do for some lip balm. And a stiff drink. No, that was what had got him into this mess in the first place. Or had it? Time to make camp for the night, he decided. With a groan, he hoisted the pack over his shoulders again and trudged off road for a short distance. “This spot looks OK.” Did everyone start talking to themselves when they were alone? No wonder old ladies kept cats. Not just old ladies, past-Lucy reminded him. Yeah, yeah. He could do with a companion right now, a dog maybe. Perhaps he could make friends with a dingo. Yeah right, and you’ll call it Lassie. Not. Rhys lit a fire — easy when everything was tinder-dry — and watched a pair of wallabies foraging for God-knew-what while he ate baked beans from the can. How the hell did those things survive out here? Surely their very presence meant there must be some water within the near vicinity... didn’t it? Rhys snorted. “Should have watched more Animal Planet,” he said, and then, reflectively, “fuck me.” Dear Rhys. I told you so. Dear Lucy. Do you ever let up? He sucked on some water, wishing, again, that he’d thought to bring a hipflask of whiskey with him. But he was dry, thirty days today. No one out here to offer him a cold brew or a nightcap or hair of the dog. Even the worst hangover could be softened with one of the latter, forgotten after two. But he was dry, clear, sober as a thirty-one-year-old in the Australian outback. Rhys lay back, his fingers laced behind his head. Stars scarred the sky, ancient history. History, now there was an interesting thought. People could interpret events in so many different ways. You only had to read eyewitness accounts of the same incident to see how much they varied. History was creative non-fiction at its best, a complete fabrication at its worst. “Shut up brain,” he said. Sat up again. Scratched around for his notebook and pen, found them in the top zip pocket of his pack. Squinting by the light of the fire, he wrote, Dear Lucy. He stared at it for sixty heartbeats, his only way of measuring time — his phone had died twenty-four hours before — then ripped the page out, balled it up and threw it on the fire. “Burn baby burn,” he murmured, and went for a pee. It didn’t take long. He only had three hundred ml left in the hydro-pack, give or take. He figured he was under his water requirements by at least a litre. Rhys unfurled his swag, removed his boots, and nestled inside. He wondered, briefly, how often snakes crawled across people while they were sleeping in swags. No one talked about these things, maybe because they hadn’t lived to tell the tale. “Oh well.” He yawned. No one but wallabies and dingoes to hear him out here, along with, oh yeah, the poisonous snakes. Whatever, he was too tired to care. Sleep came like a hammer. Rhys woke before dawn. Something was howling. There’s your dingo, he thought, and shivered. Normally he woke busting for a pee, but his bladder seemed to have assumed raisin-like proportions. He was drying up, drying out. Ha. Rhys stirred up the fire again, drank half of his remaining water, ate a muesli bar, and tried, unsuccessfully, to go for a shit. Guess he needed hydration for that too. His bowels were turning to concrete. Could that kill you? Not before he went into kidney failure, probably. You’re cheerful this morning, Lucy said. “Don’t talk to me then”’ he shot back. Lucy shut up. The sun was bleeding into the sky when he left. Rhys smeared a fresh layer of sunblock on top of his two-day layer of grime and pulled his hat down over his ears to try and keep the flies out of them. An hour passed, then two. Heat shimmered in front of him, like a migraine aura. A road train hurtled past, not even slowing when he stuck out his thumb. A shuttle driver in Alice Springs had told him that sometimes the indigenous people lay on the road in the outback, a ruse to get drivers to stop so they could rob them. He’d called the indigenous people “Abos” and said they were like animals. Rhys had stopped making conversation with him after that. Dear Lucy. I’m in the middle of nowhere. Glad you’re not here. No. That wasn’t true. At first it was funny when he’d had too much to drink. Oh Rhys, you’re so cute when you’re drunk, like a puppy. But even puppies had to grow up. He’d had more blackouts than he could remember. Conscious blackout, that was scary, still moving and talking and interacting even once his frontal lobes had checked out. You can even have sex in blackout — with the wrong person. Dear Lucy, I don’t expect you to forgive me. But... guess what? Rhys squinted into the heat shimmer. Blinked. A mirage, it had to be. And yet... He removed his sunglasses. What the hell. A pair of camels were strolling across the road as though they were in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Probably that’s where their ancestors came from. “Alice the camel had one hump,” he sang, coughing when the desert air hit the back of his throat. The camels didn’t even break stride, just continued ambling towards wherever. An oasis, probably. Maybe he should’ve hitched a ride. Rhys hacked again, reached for his water tube and sucked the hydro-pack dry. Another hour and two more cars went by, neither of them stopping when he stuck his thumb out. He was starting to feel off-kilter, his head swimming, an ache setting in behind his eyes. Didn’t take much to get heat stroke out here. But of course, you knew that when you set out with three litres of water yesterday morning, didn’t you? Dear Lucy. Are you my mother? Dear Rhys. Your sarcasm is unwanted and unnecessary. They were engaged, once upon a time. He’d proposed to her by the Trevi Fountain in Rome. They were on their OE, hardly any money but happy as. Then. Wait. Was that another engine? He swung around. It sure was, a Holden Commodore. He lifted his thumb again, hoping they’d stop, hoping they had some spare water. If nothing else, at least it would get him out of this relentless heat. “Oh, yes.” The car was slowing, the occupants — a pair of guys in their twenties, at a guess, both with mullets — grinning at him. The Holden pulled over a few metres ahead of him, and the guy in the passenger seat flung open their door. “Hey mate. Where’re you going?” Rhys wiped his brow. “As far north as you can take me.” ‘Sure thing. Stick your pack in the boot mate, there’s room.’ Smiling, Rhys strolled around to the rear of the car and stuffed his pack between a crate of beer and a battered sports bag. He slammed the boot shut, nearly fell backwards when the car leapt forward. The Holden sped away, red dust billowing behind it, the mullets whooping and laughing. “See ya later, sucker!” What the hell? Was it some kind of joke? Were they ever going to return? Rhys stood there, his mouth open, the awful, sick truth sinking in once he realised he couldn’t see the Holden anymore, and probably never would again. “Fuck you!” He yelled. “Hope you crash and die!” There went his food, his swag, his spare clothes, his hydro-pack and everything else that could be of any use to him out here. Thank God he kept his wallet in his — “Oh no.” Rhy rifled through his pockets, his panic rising once he realised that he’d stowed the wallet in the inside compartment of his pack that morning. What the hell had he done that for? He always kept his wallet in his pants pocket; always, always. Until you didn’t, moron. Not that money was of any use to him right then. But he’d also lost his credit cards, driver’s licence and forty bucks in cash. He’d have to cancel the cards, except his phone wasn’t working, which meant Mullet One and Mullet Two could be spending up large when they reached somewhere with anything worth buying. And his passport too, what about that? Rhys screamed, cursed and kicked several stones. It helped, sort of. He resumed walking. Well, what else was he meant to do? OK, don’t give up now. Someone else will be along soon enough... someone who won’t drive past or rob me, hopefully. Then again, maybe the next person would run him over. Hell, he might as well lie in the middle of the road and make it easy for them. Dear Lucy, you were right about me. I am really bloody stupid. He squinted. Was that a lizard scuttling across the road? A crocodile, even? If the heat didn’t kill him, the wildlife would. He’d read somewhere that Australian had over sixty venomous species of animals, not to mention the crocodiles, rabies-infested bats and dingoes. Rhys blinked. The reptile, whatever it was, had disappeared. Obviously not interested in him then. Time dragged past. No more cars. The sun had reached its zenith. It must have been thirty-five degrees at least, maybe more. Flies swung around him, barely moving when he tried to brush them away from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. He stumbled, righted himself again. Jesus, he’d been wandering into the middle of the road. After returning to the roadside, Rhys perched on a rock and hung his head in his hands. Do you have a death wish? Dear Lucy. If only I could turn back time. If only I could stop writing in cliches. He’d never been so thirsty before. It was all he could think about. Rhys could see the headline now: Kiwi found dead in outback Australia. Or remains of Kiwi, more likely. The flies, dingoes and birds of prey would pick him apart pretty fast. Speaking of which, was that an eagle circling overhead? Could it smell death on him already? Rhys dug into his shorts pocket in the pathetic hope he might at least find a stick of gum or peppermint. All he came up with was a dirty tissue (stained red, of course) and a couple of gold coins with kiwis on them. No kiwis out here. Emus, maybe. He hadn’t seen one of those yet, not to mention those cassowary things that could disembowel people with their massive claws. Not that they’d have much luck with his clogged pipes. Maybe this was a sign. He wasn’t meant to go home, wasn’t meant to go anywhere. He’d screwed up his life; lost his fiancé and his job, had given up his apartment, barely had enough money for his return ticket to New Zealand. But what if he apologised to Lucy, really apologised, and showed her that he could change? What then? Dear Lucy, I’ve been dry for thirty days. If I weren’t literally dying of thirst, I’d be feeling pretty good. He slipped the coins between his fingers, dropped one in the dirt, picked it up again. His Classics teacher had told him that the Ancient Greeks put coins on the eyes of their deceased. Apparently that was a payment for the ferryman to row the dead people across the River Styx to the underworld. Perhaps he should give that a go. Are you crazy? He stood up. His body felt so light without his pack, as though he might drift away on an updraft. Rhys wandered into the middle of the road, like a camel, like a madman, and stretched out on the median line.The bitumen burned through the back of his t-shirt, scorched his legs. Dear Lucy. I’m sorry about everything. His heart thrummed. Above him, the eagle dipped and whirled, watching, waiting. Rhys closed his eyes, placed the coins on his lids. Spread his arms. He felt the vibration before he heard the engine, a car approaching at speed. His balls contracted, sucking up into his body. All his moisture was gone. Perhaps he’d crunch when — if — the vehicle ran over him. He should get up. Really, he should, but his limbs had turned into spaghetti. He could barely lift his head. Dear Lucy, I miss you. He wished he could tell her that. Too late now. But here he was, about to break her heart all over again. She won’t care. Won’t she? If you do this, she’ll never forgive you. If he made it out of here, he’d take it as a sign. He’d write Lucy that letter. He’d ask for her forgiveness. He’d take her to an AA meeting to show her he meant it, this time. Hell, what was he doing? He didn’t want to die. Rhys rolled onto his side, struggled to his feet and swayed. Just walk, damn it, one foot in front of the — “Hey, mate. Hey.” Rhys blinked. A pair of eyes so dark they were almost black stared down at him. The man’s face was like a crumpled paper bag, age indeterminate. “There you go,” the man drawled. “Heat got the better of you, did it? Here, get some of this into you.” He helped Rhys into a sitting position and raised a plastic bottle to his lips. Rhys drank. And drank. And drank. “Steady on fella, you’ll puke. What are you doing out here, anyways? Didja car break down or something?” “Um, no. I, ah, got robbed.” Rhys swiped an arm across his mouth. A battered car was parked a few feet away. It looked as though it had been assembled using spare parts — a red door here, a white petrol flap there — and the tires were nearly bald. “Yeah? They take your car as well?” “No, I was hitching. They took off with my pack.” The guy scratched his belly. “That’s not cool. Did they knock you around too?” “What? No.” Rhys rubbed his head. “I guess I passed out.” “Guess you did. You’re lucky I came along. People die out here all the time.” The man stood up. “Want a ride?” That’d be great. ́Rhys, feeling steadier now, followed his rescuer to the car. “Um, I’m Rhys.” “Balun.” Once they were inside, doors closed, Balun held out his hand. “These yours?” “Oh. Yeah. Thanks.” Rhys took the gold coins from him, folding one into each fist. “Thanks again for stopping. I thought I was done for.” “Me too.” Balun accelerated out of the gravel. “Where’re you headed?” Rhys inhaled. “Home.” Was he? Yeah, he was, in a roundabout sort of way. He was sick of running away. “No place like where your mob is,” Balun said. “No place,” Rhys peered through the smeary windscreen. There was a wisp of cloud on the horizon, like a punctuation mark. “Ever been to New Zealand?” Rhys asked. “Nope,” Balun said. “Probably never will, neither.” Rhys smiled, closed his eyes. “Fair enough.” Dear Lucy, he thought, and now his head felt as though it were ready to float off his shoulders and join the hopeful comma in the sky. The patchwork car continued north, every turn of the wheels taking him closer to where he needed to be. Asked what was on her mind when she wrote the story, Eileen Merriman replied, “In 2001, I spent five weeks in Alice Springs for a medical student elective. I fell in love with the stark beauty of the Northern Territory, and cultivated a healthy respect for the wildlife and unforgiving environment of the desert. At times, it felt as though I was on another planet – a red one. There seemed to be many ‘drifters’ in the NT, people who were on holiday from or escaping their lives, and I wanted to explore that in this story.”