Storytelling and Justice Theme Analysis

Bich is famous in my town as much for her selfless sponsorship of Darra community events […] as she is for the time she stabbed a Year 5 Darra State School girl, Cheryl Vardy, in the left eye with a steel ruler for teasing Karen Dang about having steamed rice every day for school lunch. Cheryl Vardy needed surgery after the incident. She nearly went blind and Bich Dang didn’t go to prison. That’s when I realized Darra had its own rules and laws and codes and maybe it was ‘Back Off’ Bich Dang who had selflessly drafted them into existence.

“Stop tellin’ everybody else’s story and start tellin’ your own for once.”

But you heard them, Eli. You heard them on the phone, too.

“I was playing along, Gus,” I say. “I bought into the bullshit because I felt sorry for you being such a nutter.”

I’m sorry, Gus. I’m sorry.

“Well, here’s the reality, Gus,” I say. I point at Dad. “He’s so fuckin’ crazy he tried to drive us into a dam. And you’re just as crazy as him and maybe I’m just as crazy as you.”

[…]

“Did you mean to do it?”

I miss him. I gave up on him because I was scared. Because I was gutless. Because I was angry at him. Fuck him, right. His fault for hopping in bed with Tytus Broz. Not my fault. Cut him out of my mind along with the Lord of the Limbs. Cut them off like the ibis cut off its own leg because the fishing line was killing it.

“Bevan Penn,” I say. “They pixelated his face in all the photos but, I swear, Gus, he’s us. He’s you and me.”

“What do you mean, he’s you and me?”

“I mean, that coulda been us. I mean, his mum and dad look like Mum and Lyle looked when I was eight years old, you know. And I been thinkin’ how Slim used to talk about cycles and time and things always coming back around again.”

“Yeah, it’s dead,” I say.

“Stupid bird seemed so determined to kill itself,” he says.

Caitlyn slaps her hands.

“Wren!” she says. “I remember now! That’s a wren.”

And with that, the dead blue wren comes back. Like it was just waiting for Caitlyn Spies to recognise it, because, like all living things—like me, me, me—it lives and dies on her breath and her attention.

“I know you’re just the voice in my head,” I say. “You’re a figment of my imagination. I use you to escape from moments of great trauma.”

“Escape?” the man echoes. “What, like Slim over the Boggo Road walls? Escape from yourself, Eli, do ya, like the Houdini of your own mind?”

“773 8173,” I say. “That’s just the number we’d tap into the calculator when we were kids. That’s just ‘Eli Bell’ upside down and back to front.”

“Brilliant!” the man says. “Upside down and back to front, like the universe, hey Eli? You still got the axe?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” the man says. “He’s coming, Eli.”