The Esk God Character Analysis

He had been here longer than the loud pale apes, longer even than the quieter dark ones who had arrived earlier. He had seen them grow and die and spread, and he knew them far better than they would ever know themselves. With his blunt nose he could smell their foul industries; with the blanched tip of his tail he could feel their intrusions in the water; with his black eyes he could see the iron they sunk into his rivers, building dams, dropping anchors, hooking fish. He had learned the colour and the shape of their callousness, but he could not stop them, for his power was limited to the rivers, while they swamped over everything.

So come: collect your half-made coffin. I shall not charge you for it, even though I have laboured over its creation. I no longer need the money—the taxman has no chance of getting to me while these creatures plague my doorstep. Come take the flesh-stoning panels of freshly carved snowgum. But the pelt stays with me, moron boy. The only grave it shall adorn is my own.

He even met others like him—beings of rock, of sand, of earth and ice, that lived in much the same way he did, although they weren’t the same, not really. Some wore fur and feathers and watched over the creatures they resembled. Some floated high in the sky and released rain, on a whim, to extinguish him. Some swam through rivers and called themselves gods. Some were kind. Some, like a blood-hungry bird spirit he encountered deep in the southwest, were cruel. Most were calm, seeking only to care for the creatures and land that they felt drawn closest to.

The cloud’s rage howled on, pushing the storm east and west, north and south. Fields became bogs; ponds became lakes; wombats swam like water rats, and water rats cavorted like seals, drunk on the storm’s power. A muscly current turned Tunbridge into Nobridge. The Avoca post office was washed clean of all its letters. Hours after it broke over Notley, the storm reached the southern capital’s sprawling suburbs. It lashed the huddled houses before pouring onto the shiny docks, where fortuned of yachts clattered against weathered concrete.

He had been here longer than the loud pale apes, longer even than the quieter dark ones who had arrived earlier. He had seen them grow and die and spread, and he knew them far better than they would ever know themselves. With his blunt nose he could smell their foul industries; with the blanched tip of his tail he could feel their intrusions in the water; with his black eyes he could see the iron they sunk into his rivers, building dams, dropping anchors, hooking fish. He had learned the colour and the shape of their callousness, but he could not stop them, for his power was limited to the rivers, while they swamped over everything.

So come: collect your half-made coffin. I shall not charge you for it, even though I have laboured over its creation. I no longer need the money—the taxman has no chance of getting to me while these creatures plague my doorstep. Come take the flesh-stoning panels of freshly carved snowgum. But the pelt stays with me, moron boy. The only grave it shall adorn is my own.

He even met others like him—beings of rock, of sand, of earth and ice, that lived in much the same way he did, although they weren’t the same, not really. Some wore fur and feathers and watched over the creatures they resembled. Some floated high in the sky and released rain, on a whim, to extinguish him. Some swam through rivers and called themselves gods. Some were kind. Some, like a blood-hungry bird spirit he encountered deep in the southwest, were cruel. Most were calm, seeking only to care for the creatures and land that they felt drawn closest to.

The cloud’s rage howled on, pushing the storm east and west, north and south. Fields became bogs; ponds became lakes; wombats swam like water rats, and water rats cavorted like seals, drunk on the storm’s power. A muscly current turned Tunbridge into Nobridge. The Avoca post office was washed clean of all its letters. Hours after it broke over Notley, the storm reached the southern capital’s sprawling suburbs. It lashed the huddled houses before pouring onto the shiny docks, where fortuned of yachts clattered against weathered concrete.