Kthaahthikha

The street was dark by dint of a broken lamp. Marianne slid from the car and kneed the door shut, a hand flying to her pocket a moment later as she wondered if she’d locked the keys inside. The keys were in her other hand.

She walked along the footpath towards the convenience store. The cars to her side all belonged to the members of the rugby club across the road, and it was of them that Marianne thought as the cold air nipped at her ankles and occupied space after occupied space fell behind her, the shop growing up ahead.

Along the way came a figure, hard to discern amongst the bands of darkness between the squares cast by the convenience store windows. It was a woman’s body wrapped in a dark coat, walking with stiff, brisk strides, head pointed towards the concrete and boots clicking as she did.

Marianne past by her, entered the shop and purchased three litres of full cream milk, a light rye loaf and an apple. Leaving the shop, she noted the woman in the dark coat across the street, making her way across the grass of the oval and by the club house where a jukebox played. She wondered at the curious feeling it gave her. The sky was a faint purple-grey wash from the light pollution that hovered overhead like mosquito-netting against the stars. Her car started after a few groaning turns and she passed through the narrow, shadowed streets with the stray light of milk-bar signs running over her windscreen and the heater taking far too long to heat.

The cat seemed anxious. It paced back and forth and scratched at the couch and meowed at its bowl despite numerous refills. Marianne picked the thing up to silence it, the cat lying with its head upon her shoulder, wriggling silently but steadily until its mistress put it down and it ran away into the lounge room. The sounds of claws pricking at hound’s-tooth fabric followed after it like a motorboat’s wash.

It was too late for a proper dinner. She ate a tin of cold beans and went to bed. She awoke some time later when her alarm went off. It was still dark, her light was on, and a woman in a dark coat and hat was seated at Marianne’s desk, a sheet of paper before her on which she appeared to have been doodling.

“What the fuck!?” Marianne cried, or rather would have cried; her mouth had been sealed with a strip of tape run several times around her head. The short fan of her honey-blonde hair was fused firmly to the back of her neck. As she came to realise her predicament, Marianne rose up in frenzy, restricted only by tape which fixed her arms in something resembling a crucifix position against the crossbeam of the wooden bed head. The woman in the dark coat unplugged the alarm clock and pulled the chair around until she faced Marianne. The captive stared into two eyes above a kerchief, glimmering slightly in the light from the 90 watt bulb.

“Hello,” said the woman in the dark coat. By some absurd quirk of logic, Marianne wondered why she kept her hat on inside. “I don’t feel very comfortable with conversations, so I’ve taped your mouth shut to avoid any awkwardness. It’ll also help when you start screaming – I know you’re screaming now, but you probably won’t stop.”

The intruder stooped and took a black attaché case from under the desk. It was polished cherry – the desk, not the case – and a present from a late aunt.

The woman in the dark coat and hat had laid a plastic sheet on the desktop. Seeing her place the attaché case on the sheet, Marianne realised that her own bed had been remade with translucent plastic. She couldn’t see the floor, but she could here her captor’s feet squeak on the rubber as she rose.

‘How the hell did this happen,’ she thought, or something like that. ‘Who the fuck is this woman. Fuck fuck fuck.” Her thoughts were mostly incoherent. What little reserve she had kept drained away when the clasps of the case snapped open, and out came a long length of gleaming silver to slip through air and flesh like a deep sea fish. The woman in the dark coat’s eyes retreated, swallowed up by the shadow cast from her hat until only a deep pool of darkness swam beneath the brim and yawned wide like the space between worlds.

The light vanished. Marianne’s eyes adjusted to show a series of grey patches sketching the outlines for bookshelves, chairs and murderers. Her captor’s profile leapt into amber life as the desk lamp came on, and then her inky silhouette began to grow and grow until it engulfed Marianne’s vision, and all the world was darkness except for a single length of silver than swam through her like a shark.

I know this needs work, but is it basically effective?

____________________________________

1.

‘Mum,’ said Kirin. ‘Mum, mum, mum.’

‘Yes dear,’ said Vanessa, humouring her daughter. The little girl displayed her vocabulary like an aegis, delighting in the responses that it produced in adults, although she was not entirely certain of why.

The car made its way up the Princess Highway through the last shreds of daylight. The horizon was golden and the road was draped in shadows, the mountains in the distance a series of small, dark juts into the sky.

She wondered about John. She had ceased to be angry with him – it had been too long to bother continuing to hold a grudge. It annoyed her that he should be so careless, and it annoyed her further that Marianne had not been available to look after Kirin like Vanessa had hoped.

To think that he lost his wallet.

Obviously, it had been pick-pocketed. From what her husband had told her over the phone, he had pushed through a knot of people in the doorway of the bar, and when he went to pay for drinks the patent-leather fold was gone.

Nonetheless, it was the least she could do. John had insisted that no-one would lend him the money for the train, but Vanessa had a faint suspicion that he had simply been too proud to ask.

Not that she was one to harp on it or anything. She left that to the professionals. But damn it, Jonathan, you spineless, concrete bastard, couldn’t you just swallow it down for one night and beg?

‘Mum. Mum, mum, mum. Moo!’ Vanessa swivelled her head – there was in fact a cow in the paddock along the way. Next to it, on the other side of the fence, stood a woman in a black coat and hat, with her thumb stuck out.

She drew the car to a stop and wound-down the window.

‘You right?’ she called. ‘Need a lift?’

‘Yeah thanks.’

‘Where ya headed?’

‘Just up into the city. Meeting a mate of mine on Bourke Street to go down to the Ding Dong.’

‘Hop-in. I can take you down to Flinders.’

Vanessa unlocked the door and pushed it open. The woman climbed-in, hooking her dark ponytail around her neck and tipping-back her hat. The car purred up to a steady rate as the woman nestled into the seat, working her legs slightly like a cat preparing for sleep.

‘So, who ya seeing? Or are you just going out for drinks?’

‘The Mess Hall. My friend likes ‘em. I’m more of a Blasko kind of girl.’

‘I can see where you’re coming from. You right with the radio?’

Strains of electronica filled the cabin, low but pleasant, ideal for filling the silence between Kirin’s non-sequitur outbursts. The hitch-hiker nodded her head and smiled.

‘I’m Vanessa.’

‘Amy,’ said the hitch-hiker. ‘Thanks a lot for the lift. With all the cars going past you’d think more’d stop.’ Vanessa chuckled.

‘People are like that sometimes,’ she said. ‘There’s some people who refuse to pick-up hitch-hikers because they’re worried something’s going to happen, and then there’s a whole lot more who are just bastards.’

‘I take it you’re neither of the two.’

‘I’d like to think not.’

Amy relaxed in the seat, her hands in her pocket. She had them plunged in deep and was focusing sternly on the road ahead.

‘Moo!’

Amy started. She turned her head round and noticed Kirin for the first time, sitting cherubic in the booster seat.

‘Is she yours?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Kirin. She’ll be three in a couple of months.’

‘She’s big for her age.’

‘She’s quite talkative, too. John – that’s my husband – I’m going to pick him up – he’s been reading to her a lot. It’s all nonsense to her, ‘cause all he reads is old pulps, but it might have something to do with it.’

‘You’re married then?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good guy?’

‘As good as any other. He’s a sweetie, but he’s a pain in the arse at times. Like tonight, I’m driving all the way up to Melbourne ‘cause he’s got his wallet stolen from him at the pub.’

‘Does sound a pain.’

‘Yeah. And I’ve got Kirin with me because the girl I usually get to baby-sit is at a party all night – a friend’s twenty-first. Can’t blame her – when I was a teenager there was some kid’s twenty-first every weekend.’

‘Still, I suppose it could happen to anyone.’

‘What, losing the wallet.’

‘Well, the crime thing more than anything else.’

‘Yes, I suppose it could. I’ve been burgled a few times. You?’

‘Nah. I’ve been pretty lucky like that. Could you just keep driving straight ahead till I tell you to turn?’

‘Alright,’ Vanessa laughed. ‘Melbourne’s not for miles yet.’

‘Just shut-up and keep driving and turn when I tell you to.’

‘Excuse me? Who the hell do you think you are? I let you into my car and Jesus fucking Christ!’

Vanessa felt the cold blade’s edge on her throat. Outside, the sun had finally set, and the head-lights shot two fans of yellow through what might have been the depths of the China Sea. The woman stared straight ahead, her head immobile, and breathed shallow breaths despite her terror – frightened that the knife might cut her by a simple accident.

‘Don’t do anything I don’t tell you to,’ said Amy. ‘Otherwise I’ll cut your throat and jump. Do you understand?’

Vanessa went to nod, then stopped herself and whispered a yes.

‘In a kilometre there’s an exit. Take it.’

The music on the radio continued to play quietly. The hitch-hiker did not see fit to turn it off. In the back seat, Kirin made little yowling noises and began to yawn.

‘Why are you-‘

‘Shut up.’ The pressure at her throat pulsed for a second. Vanessa concentrated on the road ahead. Muscle memory took over as she considered her daughter. Oh Jesus, Kirin, what the fuck is going to happen to Kirin. Why me, why did I pick her up? You stupid fuck, you altruistic shit-head. Dead. Fucking dead.

Maybe she won’t do it. Maybe she’s not going to kill me. But then what?

Car theft.

Child theft.

Rape.

A prank.

Maybe it’s a prank. Yeah, that’s it. She’s just playing a joke. Any minute now she’ll tell me to pull over, jump out of the car and run of laughing.

‘Turn-off here,’ said Amy. Automatically, Vanessa turned the wheel. The car glided down the road towards the small town that formed a knot of luminescence a short way along.

Maybe someone will see us when we go through town.

‘Turn here again,’ said the hitch-hiker again. A barely-visible strip that might have been a drive way if it weren’t for the asphalt. It led out into the darkness and both the highway and the town dwindled away to rear. Against the purple of the night sky, the mountains were showing themselves as infinite black.

How to get away, though Vanessa? Elbow her in the stomach? She though of a movie she had seen on television many years ago, where Rutger Hauer was knocked from a speeding car through an ajar door.

The warning light was dead. Vanessa cursed herself for an idiot. The car emitted a steady, irritating beep whenever someone failed to properly close a door.

The road was a yellow-wash tableau through the window, barely seeming to change as they made along it. The asphalt merged imperceptibly into rutted dirt and gravel, and a few trees reared-up overhead from time to time. She guessed they were near to the mountains.

I’m going to die. This woman is going to kill me. Calm down, damn it, everyone dies eventually. I don’t want to die. Oh shitfuckdamnnoidontwanttodie!

Kirin. You selfish bitch. What about Kirin? She wouldn’t do anything to a child, would she? Why are we so far out in the darkness. She must be going to keep the car. Oh damn it, she better not lay one hand on my baby or-

‘Stop the car.’

Vanessa eased her foot on to the brake and drew the car over to the verge.

‘Get out.’

‘But-‘

‘Get out. Open your door and climb out of the car. Don’t try to run or I’ll kill your daughter.’

‘Please.’

‘Do it!’

‘But why…’

‘Get out of the fucking car!’

Vanessa quivered, turning her head to stare at the hitch-hiker. The hitch-hiker pushed her knife into Vanessa’s neck, forcing the head around and drawing a line of blood. The woman grabbed Vanessa’s hair in a bunch and forced her head into the window. Vanessa tried to struggle. The hitch-hiker opened the door with a free hand and pushed at it, found it locked, jammed Vanessa into the corner between the door and the seat with her knee and pulled-up the stud. Vanessa tumbled out into the cold night, lying sprawled on the dirt with the trees swaying overhead. She got-up to the sounds of Kirin crying, but the door was closed and locked when she scrabbled at the handle. There was the sound of a door slamming and Vanessa was grabbed by the back of the neck, thrown down, half-dragged screaming and kicking and grabbing at the ground into the deeper layers of shadow that rested beneath the trees across the road.

Kirin sat crying in the back of the car, banging against the glass. She watched the shadows moving under the trees and listened to the occasional scream that would break out of the muffled grunts, only to die-off again quickly and be overlaid by another voice muttering and cursing.

Kirin fumbled with the back door. She managed to unlock it, but it wouldn’t open. The little girl began to howl, kicking at the door. A foot bashed into the window winder and the glass slid down a few centimetres.

From under the trees came the continued screams and groans. The glass moved down a little further as Kirin flailed at it. She peered at the winder, then at the gap between the rubber and the glass. She began to push it around, slowly, and the window dropped down millimetre by millimetre. Soon the glass sat at eye-level, and Kirin began to grab at it, dragging herself up. She used the door-handle to prop her foot, and soon hung out of the window gurgling and hooting, her cries drowned by the sounds from under the trees.

There was a thud as Kirin hit the ground. She broke into tears, and sat in a heap rubbing her head and calling for her mother, who unfortunately could not answer. Along the way a pair of lights appeared, and Kirin looked at them, her mind confused, and rose stumbling towards them. The road was quiet except for her self-indulgent babbling and the purr of an accelerating motor-car.

Can one be accused of conceitedness if they really are the best thing to ever grace the surface of this earth?

Are you really a sadist if you only enjoy hurting masochists?

This story, first written with the intention of complaining about an issue rather minor and yet pressing greatly upon my mind, has so diverged from its original purpose that I am forced to look out the window, in contemplation of the variety of strange and unfortunate circumstances which have pressed upon my mind much like that most recent of troubles, which forced me to put pen to paper in the defence of the national pride.

One cannot help but wonder at the circumstances which led to my uncovering that strange truth, which lay covered by a moth-eaten rag at the bottom of an old cedar chest in the caretaker’s closet at the Louvre. Having found myself there, in search of a mop, I investigated the case and was amazed that anyone might leave something of such import lying so carelessly locked away within a sturdy box, in a locked room in a secure and well-guarded building.

Having suppressed my wonderment, I held the thing up to the dim, uncovered globe, and was amaze to see that some small creature swirled and gestated inside of it. Curious, I slipped the object within my coat, and fled down the hallway in a swift but inconspicuous manner.

Once safely ensconced within my hotel room, a cheap place used more by locals than tourists, I laid the thing upon my chest of drawers and watched it carefully, intrigued by the strange patterns that its shadow formed through the translucent sheath of the casket.

I was unable to stay in Paris much longer, being greatly pressed for time in regards to my appointment with Lord Roqsnest. I took the airbus to London and from there transferred to the trans-Atlantic flight that would take me, via stopovers in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, to my home city of Melbourne where I might study the item further. During my brief pause in Chicago his Lordship and I agreed upon a suitable fee regarding the case of Ming-dynasty silverware that I was to broker for him, and I made a brief acquaintance with a lovely young women of scant means, to whom I played something of a benefactor, though not entirely selflessly.

At home, I stood in my apartment, the book opened before me from which it was intention to read. I recited cool, dark verses in a mellifluous vice imparted to me by long training under the enchanters of Tibet, and the casket began to glow with a preternatural inner light. It split apart into seven segments, each of which folded outwards from myself, and from the centre there emerged a creature unlike any that I had yet seen, a strange combination of the organic and the aethereal that seemed constructed of reality itself, and which opened wide in several directions as I tumbled forwards and yet also downwards into a circling pit, the light of the earth vanishing as it diminished away above me, and I fell into a strange world of bright lights and snatching tentacles that hissed and swirled about me, screaming with abject madness and delighting in the suffering which they presumed to impart to me, although I in fact rather enjoyed it.

It is here that I remain to this very day, swirling through the deconstructed elements of the universe, slipping under the skin of the everyday like some queer parasite as I emerge forth from time to time to spew-out some heinous monstrosity that passes up within a corporeal being and lays an icy, vice-like grip upon their mind. And I do this that I might impart a vital and chilling fragment of knowledge:

Youth culture is ruining the English language.

It would have been ten in the morning when the rains broke. The air was thick with electricity and the clouds had turned to purple-black. Lightning crackled through the sky and the breeze began to pick-up. The sweet, formic scent of precipitation reached the children's noses. They sat together on Mikh's veranda and played cards as the first fat drops hit.

The sky opened wide and thunder struck like a cannonade. The buildings shook with every nearby clap. The rain drummed against the roofs and exposed chinks in expertly-constructed armour. The thin film of dust that covered the concrete earth ran to mud and was churned by the feet of those few who darted across the road, coats across heads, faces lashed by the stinging fall. The drum of ten million fingers upon every sounding-board. Sheet metal, clap-board, tiles and thatching. Fibreglass crackled as though ready to break, the water pouring from it in ceaseless streams. The saloon slowly filled-up. Men and women came to celebrate with the excess skimmed from their monsoon pay. Cards and darts and pool were played. As the rain continued, the few stray animals ran to cower beneath verandas in the wide gaps below the floorboards where flood-trenches were cut running from house to house. The ditches ran like rivers and the road was mired in muck. Leaves and sticks and carrion washed out of the jungle and down the road in a bizarre parade of refuse. The children were forbidden to go about without adults. The adults had converged upon Mikh's and left the children there with Ms Gilalh inside listening to the AV deck. The power had been disconnected except for the auxiliary lines, and only the refrigerators and the little wan lights powered on as the AV deck ate its way through the battery charged normally by the rooftop solar array, yet fading slowly under the shadow of rain.

The lightning cracked in sheets across the sky, entire horizons turned to stark white amidst the midnight black. Bolts like twisted branches writhed through the air and struck the forest repeatedly, the flames smothered by the omnipresent saturation. Hail swept intermittently and ricocheted off of windows and walls. The publican had driven his tractor back into the shed the moment the first drop fell. The giant, standing alone amidst the melting ground, was non-conductive and so sat beneath a tree, slightly mournful in stance. Several times throughout the day the woman came out of the saloon bundled in a black raincoat and talked to him over the thunder of the storm. At other times the giant simply pushed its way off through the greenery, emerging some time later with its beak smeared by juice and the fragments of leaves. As night approached the giant withdrew an enormous tarpaulin from its backpack and draped it over itself, sitting hunched atop a corner and turning the edges up. He hooked several fastenings together, and sat in the makeshift tent as the lightning and the rain continued on.

One last time before night the woman went out to see him. When she returned, ten minutes later, she assured the publican that he was calm and comfortable, and made her way into the lounge to sit by the fire.

The saloon was full until eleven each evening. It was then that Kenichi called for everyone to go home, and children were liberated from the dull observation of their baby-sitters. On this first night of the monsoons, when the rain had yet to fade to a steady drizzle and the elements were still raging outside, the woman with the giant and the stranger from Tchekov first spoke.

'Hello,' said the stranger. He was seated in an armchair by the fire, reading a book.

'Hi,' said the woman. She had no book, and had been in the process of drifting into sleep.

'You are staying here, aren't you,' he said.

'Yes. Obviously. You too.'

'Yes.'

There was a considerable pause. Over the drum of the rain came the faint, muffled howl of a jungle beast. Both pricked their ears and looked to the door. When there was no reprise, the two settled down again. The woman observed the man. He was elderly, in his fifties, balding pate and mostly-grey hair still light brown in places. A well-kept moustache and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. He was wearing a flannel casual suit in cream and a silver-grey neck tie. His book was printed in some archaic orthography, the words on the spine vaguely familiar yet foreign.

'I know you,' she said.

'Possibly,' said the stranger. 'I know you.'

'Hard not to. Edgar is conspicuous.'

'And damp.'

She smiled and went to the bar. The publican had gone to bed. She made herself a cup of tea and inquired if he would like one also. The stranger shook his head.

'Now where do I know you from?' she said, regaining her seat. 'That's the question.'

'I imagine you meet a lot of people.'

'Indeed.'

Another pause. The stranger returned to his book. She drank her tea.

'The Spider.'

'Pardon?' said the stranger.

'That's who you remind me of. The Spider. Edvard Hoege.' The stranger smiled.

'Yes, he'd be about my age.'

Droplets crawled down the window pane and dropped to the veranda below. From somewhere indeterminate came the steady drip of water into a bucket.

'Does your farmhand lover still have the tattoo?' asked the stranger.

'Yes. He wanted to get it lasered-off but changed his mind at the last moment.'

'And he finds zis arrangement of yours entirely acceptable?'

'Entirely. I do control him, pretty-much.'

'True.'

'He'd never get by save for my good graces.'

The stranger chuckled quietly.

'Say-' The woman leant forward with a mischievous grin. Her hair - frizzed by atmosphere - framed her twinkling eyes. 'You are the Spider.'

The Spider closed his book and sighed.

The greatest book of all time?

Arguably!

The first three cantos of my unfinished homage to Longfellow , which mostly look like this:

III

The Song of the Pleiades

It was this time before the campfire,

When the lands were cold in winter,

When the bushfires swept the forests

And tribes picked embers from the ashes;

Then there came the Karatgurk,

The five women from the northward.

On the Yarra flats they dwelt then

With their hair flowing about them,

Bearing secrets out before them,

Begged after by all the Kulin.

Upon their digging-sticks they bore it,

The bright pin-points of coals,

Fire from campfire to campfire

Never shared with any asker.

Sweet yams they baked within it,

The delicious warmth and taste,

Or shared their raw yams with old Waang,

The crow who followed these five beauties.

Not knowing of the taste,

Knowing not the fire's blessing,

One day Waang fell upon a cooked yam

Left discarded by the fire.

The sweet taste was so delicious,

It enthralled him and bewitched him;

He begged the Karatgurk for fire

But the five sisters refused him.

Poor Waang, cursed by the tasting

Of that single wondrous cooked yam,

He was wise and cunning, old Waang,

Catching up a host of black snakes.

These he hid within an anthill,

Where the bull-ants squirmed and writhed.

Then he called out to the maidens;

'Fair Karatgurk!' he called-out,

'Come to this the teeming ant's nest,

Dig within the pale earth,

Quest downward with your digging sticks,

Draw forth the masses of larvae.

For the flavour of the larvae! O,

It shames a thousand yams.

The sweet writhing mass to fill your guts,

Come to, it fairest maidens,

Come to it, Karatgurk!'

And they listened to old Waang's words,

And their mouths flooded with the thought.

The sweet flavour beckoned them down,

Digging sticks tearing at hard earth.

Down through the swarms they burrowed,

Yet no sooner had they broached

Into the fair Queen's royal chamber,

Gazing up with startled facets,

Than there burst from out the chamber

The ten-fold sharp-fanged serpents,

The yellow bellies scraping,

The spines winding like rivers,

Till they came upon the sisters,

Their jaws wide and venom dripping,

And the battle raged through the bush,

As the birds cried-out the conflict.

'War! War!' There screamed the magpie,

And the swallow spoke of famine.

The wagtail trilled and fled to sky

As black snakes coiled by his patch.

The Karatgurk wielded their sticks,

Beating back the savage serpents,

And the coals flew to the dry earth,

Rolled hissing amidst the grey dust,

As old Waang the crow dove down

And snatched a few coals up.

Away across the bush he winged it,

Warbling his cries of triumph,

Cawing encrypted jubilation

To the startled folk below.

In a high, high tree he nested,

And he surveyed all the land.

When the Karatgurk had triumphed,

Swinging their blood-stained yam sticks,

The black snakes lay about them

As they returned to fetch the coals.

Yet on finding some coals missing

They saw now that Crow had tricked them,

Cursed sly old Waang for his mischief

And coursed him swiftly through the trees.

At the tall bole's feet they made camp,

Crying-out for him to come down,

But Waang remained high above them

With the bright coals clutched in hand.

Then Bunjil the All-Father,

The Eaglehawk from out the sky,

He came passing by the tall tree

And heard the loud commotion.

Seeing all the events

Lain-out quite plain before him,

He demanded of the old crow

That he be given coals to cook with.

'For I have a bit of possum,

That I would much like to eat hot.'

But Waang the shrewd refused him,

'Toss the possum here, I'll cook it.'

And he roasted well the tidbit

And cast it succulent to Bunjil.

Bunjil took the piece of possum,

And he saw it was still smoking,

So he blew with all of his breath,

Sought to rouse the flesh to flame,

Yet he acted all in vain.

Then the Kulin gathered round him,

The beasts clamoured all at old Waang,

They tore at the trees broad base;

They demanded that he cede them,

That he cast to them the bright coals,

And he quailed in fear as he saw them,

The broad sea of screaming faces.

Flung him then the fire amongst them,

Watched the bright coals cascade down,

Watched Koruk-goru snatch one,

Slip the bright coal behind his tail,

And seal his term, the fire-tail finch,

The bright orange of his hind.

The rest was grasped by Djurt-djurt,

By Thara, Bunjil's aids,

And they cast a lump at old Waang,

Caught the crow across the chest.

Then he screeched high in agony,

Burnt forever black by bright flame,

And the land below was scorched jet

By the harsh justice of the pair.

Kindled the land, did Djurt-djurt,

Fanned the flames did clever Thara,

Waang's fair country scorched ashen,

Till Lord Bunjil came around it,

Took the Kulin for assistance,

And beat about the smoking wastes.

With great rocks he stalled the furnace,

Placed boulder's at Yarra's head,

And the rocks are still visible,

Wardens against the inferno.

Amidst the crackling crimson flames,

The Kestrel and the Quail-hawk,

Their own heat did consume them,

Justice for their unkind actions,

Penitence for fire consuming,

And they were burnt down black to cinders,

Left to stand amidst the forest,

On the bald hill, Munnio,

They stand now stone, upon the ash-hill,

And old Waang stands by their side,

All alone upon the bald hill,

Scorched by the careless first fire's flame.

Bunjil, he set to seeing,

Saw the worth of the Karatgurk,

Swept them up in his broad arms,

Swept them up into the heavens,

And the five bright stars look down,

Watch the world they helped to make,

Watch the fires which they gave man,

Brought down on their sticks from the north,

The bright coals glowing eternal

On the tips of their digging sticks,

Casting light across the world,

The Pleiades, the five fair sisters.

Cthulhu Circus