after australia

The sun is in its place, and in this place the sun is like no other I’ve ever seen. Yesterday, when they brought a man here, when he first felt the sun’s heat, he’d swooned; they had to carry and drag him into the cage. He hasn’t woken yet, I’m told – their petty revenge for the extra effort they had to make delivering him has left him half dead. A thing of meat, cooking in the tin-shed infirmary, he’s unlikely to ever wake. I don’t expect him to join me out here where I am.

I am stateless now. The law, the cops, border patrol has taken me from me, from place, from my country; left me with no country, no home at all. I am within bars, not bars, the bars are metaphorical: I lean face-first against a chain-link fence. I don’t know what’s outside, but bush, thicker than I’ve seen, thicker than I’m capable of imagining.

That’s how I know this is not a nightmare, or if it is, it’s not mine. I desire to give this vision back to whoever owns it. I can smell my sweat cooking.

Along the fence, a man mumbles on a loop. I can hear the pattern, I can hear his voice rising and falling, but I cannot make out any words. He was there yesterday, too. I can’t remember if he was there the day before, but it seems likely. He’s even thinner than me, all cooked and starved down to skin and bone. I know the moment he stops mumbling he will mummify. I told the guards about him yesterday and they didn’t care – or was it the day before?