They left the highway behind and drove along the dirt road in the red skied glow of the sunset, swigging on their cold longnecks and singing along with the Triffids about the wide open road, loud and hard with veins sticking out on their necks and all the windows down blasting the warm desert air and a faint hint of the sea across their faces and chests, running free in front of the long parachute of dust billowing behind them, obscuring where they’d come from…
Billie (Will) is a small kid bleached by the ocean. He surfs. Riley’s bigger, bites his nails and pretends he does too. They roam their beachside suburb, nose drip over their first surf magazine and start to dream of far off places. Suddenly out of a heatwave, a fire erupts to take more than their bushland.
Later, in their mid twenties, the friends reconnect driving across the desert. There they live in the heat, dust and cold salt water, amongst a melting pot of passing travellers and violent incensed locals. Riley forgets a girl he thought he knew and Will’s drug addiction gives way to blindness to life beyond the sea which may prove to be even more destructive.
Musings around the campfire become real as Will leaves everything and heads for the tropical islands of Indonesia. At first a phone call, then a postcard, then nothing. Eventually Riley, in a strong relationship with stable work, sets out to try to track him down and, heading deep into the islands, starts to learn things he never knew he should.
A thin strip of sooty smoke swayed out through the top of the lamp at the islander's side and its amber glow lit up the dark tattooed patterns on his body, the drawn skin over his high cheeks and angular forehead and left deep shadowed hollows for his eyes. Long black hair fell past his shoulders ... the islander looked over at Riley ... opened his mouth into a leering smile, revealing rows of teeth sharpened to points, like the razored teeth of a shark, giving him a savage and menacing appearance...
Join on us Facebook, subscribe to our e-newsletter or read our blog
