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The Highway and the Lost Soldier

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The Highway and the Lost Soldier The midday sun around Adelaide River does something violent to the bitumen. At forty-five degrees, the Stuart Highway softens like melting fat; it turns into a black mirror, rippling with an unnatural, liquid glare that pools over every low rise. That is where it waits. He is always trudging south, away from life and deeper into the blistering furnace, his boots making no sound against the tar. The Highway and Lost Soldier Standing From two hundred yards out, he resembles a stranded traveler you’d pull over to save. He wears sun-bleached, disintegrating drill cotton that matches the bone-white dust of the termite country, his head angled down at an impossible, broken angle against the glare. No broad-brim hat. No swag. No water bottle. Just stiff, unnatural limbs jerking with every stride. “Driver... look at his face. We need to stop—why won't he turn around?” He is no lost tourist. Could he be the linesman from the Overland Telegraph days who tore ...
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Australian Gothic

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  The land  Where there are no crumbling castles  No bloodsucking vampires No ancient monsters No antiquity Too immature for proper history The terror is unseen The terror has been repressed  Through imperial violence, fear, and subversion Mass transportation to the dungeon of the world 50 thousand years  Then came The water buffalo The missionaries Pastoral activity Uranium mining Forestry Tourism Sheer relentless pressure Bringing forth crisis and social breakdown And obligated to make way We sense their dread As they combined the elements to create a threat A social, religious, and physical threat The darkest mountain The deepest canyon There is no escape THEN There are those who predicted the threat Those who compose the realities of impending horror  Those who shepherd the flock into their shelters As we return to our nooks and anticipate their foretold slaughter When you feel an object is both alive and not alive Consecrated Special powers Invisible ...
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