#i never have anything interesting to say about tumble town but its a wonderful catalyst for me losing my mind over ghost towns

[made-nondescript]

sometimes i go a little bit insane thinking about the towns of early western america and how many just aren’t there anymore people’s whole lives washed away by sand and sun with nothing but dry, old wood and stone foundations and mines, now empty, to prove they’d ever been there.

sometimes i go a bit nuts thinking about all the cemeteries no one has visited in decades because they are miles from any development, now. wooden headstones reduced to kindling and the stone ones worn down so far that you’re lucky to make out a single letter. fences that have long since stopped serving their purpose.

places built to be temporary but even still were at one point were full of people’s friends and family and hope. i don’t know. a little crazy about it rn

[guyawks]

Tasmariner

I fell in love with the Southern Lights, and he was kind to me.

It has become a regular occurrence for me to be asked question upon question about what I do. The curiosity of those who follow my work still astonishes me, even with me having participated in this tawdry routine for years. They want to know who I am, where I came from, what that one, secret catalyst behind Travis McArthur’s success was. Where is the mystery in a public figure nowadays? What ever happened to the culture of character? These same questions reach my solitude by airmail, email, radio interview, and I answer them all as I have learned to.

“I lived a simple life. Nothing to write home about. What you’d expect to imagine”, I say. Perhaps I’ll contribute a staple insight, another “Remember to study your trade” or “Write down every idea”. But, in truth, there will always be a second, a small, fleeting lapse, where I consider telling them the real story. Even a lifetime on, as I stare out across the rusted canyons of an east Tasmanian mining town, clad in a navy smoking jacket, it’s a story I can recall almost instantly, as if it happened yesterday. Eventually, I’ll sit down and commit it to lasting, binding print, I think. But then again, there are stories better left in one’s mind. And, selfish as it may seem, I like to imagine that I can keep his memory as mine, alone, for just a little longer.

It is of note to me how often it has been said that I have an old soul; that I seem so much beyond the thirty years I’ve lived. I never disputed this, although it is never a description I claimed, either. But, regardless, this aged mind was once young. When I first arrived in Tasmania, eagle-eyed and full of wonder, it was an eighteen-year dream realised. I don’t believe I’d ever smiled as furiously as I did the first time I stepped off that wooden boardwalk and into the shadow of Mount Wellington. Roads and houses seem to cascade from that point, inviting me onwards and upwards to whatever came next. It seemed so grand to me at the time and, I suppose, it still is. Those were my golden years; years when I was less self-important and more yielding to the world’s will.

It had always been my dream to be a writer. Back then, writing wasn’t necessarily how I gave to the world, but how I sought to realise my own. In beaches far north, under overbearing tropical warmth, I would write myself away to somewhere more my liking, with my pen as my mast and my page my sail. Somehow, it had only occurred to me during the closing flurry of my high school graduation that I now had the option to render my metaphorical departure a real one. No more would I be bound by the expectations of my parents or the bloodlust of native insects. Even if it was just for one, exhilarating winter, I could find peace and fuel for my writing in the place I’d always seen on postcards.

Unfortunately, time is rarely a patient benefactor to creative minds. The end of my trip was nearing and I hadn’t found any sort of masterstroke of inspiration. Sure, I now had a rich and detailed landscape to work with. I could visualise the fantasy world of my novel, filled with snowcapped mountaintops and bustling shipping ports, clear as day, thanks to my travels. But this epic canvas lacked human presence. All I had was my protagonist and, as far as characters go, he wasn’t particularly likable. Senick Shadowland was a sneakthief who took from every purse that he encountered to get by. He was cold and otherwise shut off to the outside world, with a high opinion of his own traits. My narrative was as empty as his morals.

Meanwhile, back on the mainland, my family had grown restless waiting for my return. I knew that there had been talk among my relatives of me going to work at a local accounting firm in the business district of Brisbane. In a sense, I was grateful to the encroaching sill on my window of opportunity. I had seen the sights, sampled the food, the wine, the coffee, and was only truly leaving without my story. Beyond that, I lacked any real reason to stay.

That was when I met Dale.

Souvenirs were always an absolute essential whenever I travelled anywhere. Regardless, I had put off searching for the right gifts during my three-month sojourn, and in my last week, needed to find them quickly.

Walking through Salamanca market at the beginning of my final week, my eyes settled on a rich, earthy-looking store amidst the painted white buildings at its shoulders. Standing outside was a tall, well-muscled man with a golden pocket watch swaying from his wrist. Almost as if he sensed my stare, he looked up to meet my look with his own. His eyes were a piercing silver-blue, a pair of barracudas that seemed as if they could hover in place for days.

“Looking for something wonderful for someone?” he beamed at me eloquently, revealing with his smile a set of bold white teeth and rugged creases in his face. Dressed in a warm maroon sweater and loosely draped scarf, he looked entirely at ease, and I comfortably followed him as he ushered me out of the winter cold and into the warmth of his shop. His store was both impeccably organised and wildly eclectic, in a way that felt inviting and inviting of questions. Each item seemed to have a story, and a character to it, arranged in a static performance of their history. Eventually, my attention was caught by a fishhook keychain that would be perfect for my older brother.

“Tell you what, love,” he said, eyes glinting. “I’ll give you half off for this one- if I see you again tomorrow.” And so I did. Each following day, I returned to Dale Breckenridge’s enchanting pawnshop. On Tuesday, I purchased an ornamental lamp for my sister. On Wednesday, I gained a silver pen for my childhood friend. On Thursday, I bought a velvet rug for my parents, and so on. With every purchase, I learned more about the salesman, who seemed more interested in me than my steady patronage. He asked me what had brought me here, sensing innately that I was not anything remotely local. I unloaded on him my passions, my search for inspiration, my aversion to my past life, and he listened intently. He was, in a word, extraordinary.

It’s embarrassing to admit that his smooth, unwavering confidence unsteadied me. Every time I entered, I felt as if I could trip and take the entire store tumbling with me. But if Dale noticed, he didn’t seem to care. If anything, it pleased him, as if every foible of mine was something he longed for in himself. It regretfully occurred to me that there was something left to explore in this man, and that if I had only met him earlier in my stay, I would be able to.

It was on the last day before I was due to leave, that Dale decided I would learn the truth. On a parchment note left outside my rented flat that sleepy, Sunday morning, he told me to meet him at a special destination, that there was something he needed to show me before I left. It transpired that this place was the peak of Mount Wellington, not far from the trails I had walked when I first arrived. Tentatively, I followed his wishes to a T. Hovering at that meeting point, the sun barely having just set over the horizon, my heart thundered when I saw him emerging over the hill. This would be it, where I finally said goodbye. But rather than continuing towards me, he paused. And together, in that moment, our lives changed.

His body illuminated by an endless stretch of stars, his physical form faded and gave way to a familiar cyan mixture of cosmic light. It undulated and rippled majestically as it spiralled into the sky, as if Aurora Australis had been there from the start. I would be the only human to know different.

Dale glowed, and I glowed as well, my neck craned backwards in awe. I was less so in shock, and moreso at inner completion, a realisation of everything I’d already hoped to be true about the world. There was more to this planet than the hustle-and-bustle of the working world, everything I’d left behind. I was in the presence of something miraculous.

While I was lost for words on that one, breathtaking night, we made up for the silence the following eve. As explosions of imitation neon shined out from the Dark Mofo festival beneath us, we camped out in grassy serenity, under the sky Dale called home. There, he told me everything; how his moments on Earth were unpredictable and painfully short, what he sees when he traverses the skies, what the meaning was behind his beloved timepiece. He explained how it had been given to him by the man who made him like this, back when he was a mortal being. One man in the all the world would become the Southern Lights, and that is how it has always been. A weary soul, Dale lamented the impermanence of his days, how he was used to people coming and going, and how such was the nature of his life. But no more would he need to worry about that.

“I won’t go. This is my home now, Dale. I will never leave you.”

I fell in love with the Southern Lights, even when our love was barred by nature and man.

It only took two weeks for my sister to arrive to bring me home. A busy public relations consultant, Laura McArthur had been harangued by our family into flying down to Hobart and talking sense into me. With my dark blonde hair and mousy brown eyes mirrored in her, we had always felt a sense of immutable kinship, despite our greatly different approaches to life. My optimism had motivated her when she was down, and her discipline had kept me grounded when my life lacked order. Out-of-place, attired in pantsuit and bunned hair, she sat for hours in a local tavern, debating with me my options. But, while I pled a convincing case, it was ultimately Dale that won her over. Strolling into the bar in immaculate form, his charm worked as effortlessly on her as it had on me. A few days later she left town, unconvinced, but convinced enough to let me stay.

Shortly after, I got a job as a bookkeeper in a nearby bookstore. It was a setting I had always sought after, and I couldn’t imagine a better fit for myself. With the store not often busy, much of my schedule allowed to me steal away to work on my writing. Adding to my content, on treasurable, rare occasions, Dale would visit, inhabiting an oak rocking chair to read a classic while I worked. It felt like the life I always should have been living. After I had settled into the parochial confines of this routine and the epic secret of my new love, that was when my journeys began.

I began charting the places across the isle where I could see Dale when he disappeared away, predicting where his aura was strongest in the Southern Hemisphere sky. In those days, or even weeks, when he was elevated and unreachable, I could be with him and be witness to his true beauty. Impelled, I did it all. I hiked to the highlands surrounding Cradle Mountain, waiting out the freezing mid-July winds bundled in polyester shields, hoping I may too be carried away into Dale’s reach. I wandered the coast of Dover, watching Dale at his strongest, most unclouded visage, hugging the shore of the island’s southernmost town and staring onto Antarctica. In later months, I travelled by steam train through the damp forests of Western Tasmania, emerging from the shroud of vibrant green into an antipode of arid brown. It was here, in Queenstown, where Dale’ colours truly shone, amplified by the copper-tinged cliffs. Normally a shower of blues and greens, Dale had exchanged these tones for violet and red, and I raptly watched this unique display until the dawn warded him off.

It occurred to me as I left, how much I could sink into the tranquillity of one of these destinations, buy a house, settle in complete isolation. Yet, that was a dream for another day.

In the midst of my love affair with the elements, success struck. A draft for one of my signature fantasy concepts, “Zanotharia”, had made its way through to a Melbourne publisher. I found myself deposited somewhere between euphoric and lost. On one hand, I was elated at the sudden follow-through in my dreams. It had been as if some missing piece in my mind had fallen into place, as if the joy and compulsion behind Senick had presented itself, out of nowhere. But, before I knew it, my first novel was published, I was considered a novelist, and my life of retreat was in question. As the campaign process begun, Laura stepped in to lend assistance, not wanting a second of my victory to slip away. It was at this point where she made her most persuasive pitch for the city.

“You can’t have career- a real career, as a writer- out here. This is really huge, Trav. Don’t ruin this.” But, alas, I had made a promise to Dale. Furthermore, the equilibrium of my life worked. I could balance writing, with promoting, with the voyeuristic pursuit of Dale. In my naivety, it seemed all but attainable.

That wasn’t to say that there weren’t obstacles.

The Kingsley family’s disputes over Dale’s property ownership had become significantly more public in recent years, and it was Vincent Kingsley, the youngest of the land baron clan, who had taken to confronting Dale at every opportunity.

“This is prime real estate, and you’re hardly even around to use it. Now, I wonder why that might be?” he questioned venomously, tilting his head ever so slightly, as his cropped red hair emanated a seething resentment that his voice did little to hide. Dale had occupied the pawnshop for decades now, and it wouldn’t take more than a wary eye to discern that something was unusual about the elusive pawnbroker. Vincent Kingsley’s suspicions were burning like a wildfire, but even with veiled threats of violence and vandalism scouring the air between them, Dale stood his ground and didn’t let his mask of calm fall.

         “Thanks so much for your continued interest in my shop, Mr Kingsley- or can I call you Vince?” Dale jabbed coolly. “I’ll make sure I’m here if you ever want to take that tour.” To this, Vincent merely scowled, turned on his heel and strolled away, his eyes flickering over me as he retreated. Throughout all of this, I had kept my head down and out of trouble. If I had thought this approach would immunise my life from collapse, I was wrong. It had to fail some time. And after this long, it finally began to.

Years passed and, without me even noticing at first, things began to change. My book had become a book series, with Senick’s love affair with a young mercenary, from whom he’d stolen, warming his heart and carrying him into grandiose exploits. But, while the well of inspiration that had propelled this intrepid character hadn’t yet run dry, I knew that it was beginning to go stale. Like the slow filling of an hourglass, I could feel a weariness growing inside me. Dale’s moments with me became, as I should have predicted, progressively more rare. On our chance meetings, he told me of how his calling to the heavens agonised him, how he wished he could stay here with me, throw everything away. I knew he longed to release me. Yet, as transcendent as Dale was, he was still only human.

Life continued. My latest novel’s reviews arrived, falling far short of my expectations. It seemed that Senick had nowhere to go, that he should have settled down long before now, that he was just biding time until a grisly death. Death proved equally present in my world, too, when I learned when of my parents’ sudden passing in a car accident. Upon returning to Brisbane, at last, for the funeral, it occurred to me more than ever how solitary I had become. Loneliness had stowed away inside for quite some time now, but was only now making its presence known. By the time of my return to Hobart, I was a thoroughly fragile human being. And fragile men are vulnerable.

Mitchell Edison was one of the few interjections of a social life into my routine. Without him, I probably would have left Tasmania long before I did. A local tour guide with a passion for community activism, we fell into rousing talks one night outside the town hall. As an admitted fan of my writing, he had nothing but intrigue for my minor celebrity.

“You’re nothing like I expected you to be” he remarked, his shroud of black hair rustling imperiously against his leather jacket. “I bet you that I can find the real Travis McArthur.” He set out to do just that, and a new series of trips began. My expeditions across the island to see Dale had long since halted, and I welcomed this immersive return to the realm of nature. Hearing that I had canoed through Northern Queensland in my youth, Mitchell compelled me to white water raft with him through the drenched temperate rainforests of Tarkine. It became a regular occurrence, every weekend without fail, as a hole I had never noticed within myself mended itself discretely. I fell asleep under glistening canopies, and felt snowflakes chill the dashboard of his truck on long, alpine highways. The thrill of youth had returned to me.

We clashed frequently, with disagreements erupting over the most menial of things. Pitching a tent, dealing with native wildlife, taking the right route; it was one issue or another. Our dynamic was so far from what I had shared with Dale. But, in honesty, the friction gave me the warmth I needed not to freeze. As Mitchell learned more about the man he’d read in book jackets, he began to form tangible opinions on him, although I was seldom interested in hearing them. I was always reclusive, unwilling to commit to him, lacked any signs of moving forwards.

“You’re wasting away”, he would say indignantly, tugging at the knotted laces to his boots. “It’s like nothing even matters to you.” How could I tell him how wrong this statement was, or just what had been keeping me here all these years? Moreso, I didn’t even know how could I answer it to myself. He was right, an increasing part of me felt.

I gave out eventually. On one midsummer night, we slept together in the back of his truck, while eucalyptus trees rustled behind us in the temporal still of twilight. Moments after, while Mitchell lapsed into slumber, I lay on my back and fixed my eyes on the pressing glare of the moon.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry”, I murmured. At an empty indigo sky, I murmured all night long.

I fell in love with the Southern Lights, in a place far away from the rest of the world.

Not having seen Dale in years, there was little tying me here anymore. The foundation that had defined me had almost fully eroded. I was an untethered soul, looking to label myself instantaneously. When Laura contacted me with a job offer to work for a publishing house in Melbourne, for the first time, I was unwavering. I didn’t shed a single tear the night that I left. I hadn’t cried for the loss of Dale for months, and it seemed appropriate to remain composed now. It was the flight that I hadn’t taken, and I was taking it a decade too late. Yet, I could never resent Dale. All I wanted still, deep within my heart, was to be with him.

The call soon came telling me that I never would.

I can barely remember the details of the message, what I was doing at the time, the blinding rush of the plane trip back. All I knew was that I had to see him once more, to atone and to be complete. Arriving at his shop, I found Dale’s imaginarium, the site of so many untold stories, in flames. Police ringed the blaze, evidence of an altercation clear, and a manic series of shouts rang out from the handcuffed baron I had once underestimated.

“He’s a spectre, a fiendish spirit. I saw him!” raved Kingsley wildly. A shell of his dignified persona, Vincent’s eyes mirrored the inferno he’d started, his faced a twisted mass of desperation. “That man doesn’t die, I can prove it!” Oh, but Kingsley was wrong.

Looking back, I can see no other place my love would have been. Dale could never be in bad shape. As graceful as the day I met him, he lay silently upon that same hill on Mount Wellington. A single bullet hole of blood stained into his white shirt, he had fled to the one mountaintop that meant everything, to everyone. Reaching him at last, I dropped to his side, and finally my tears were freely flowing. He was a man ready to die. Perhaps, he even wanted it. Any knowledge Kingsley had learned would die with Dale. And he would finally take his long-sought place on Earth.

“Love. I wanted…to see you one more time” Dale whispered fondly, the ghost of a smile ringing his lips. “Of all the times and places and things I’ve seen…you were the best.”

“Thank you so much for everything” I choked back. Silence overtook the scene as Dale’s century of life slowly ebbed away. Gone was the majesty of his past disappearances. All there was that night was a quiet display of mortality, exactly as it should be. That was how the journey ended; how the bountiful spill of inspiration that had defined me, set itself alight, and burned slowly out.

Pacified, I turn my head away from the window and polish my reading glasses. Focus returning, my sight catches the wall of books, manuscripts, and writings upon the selves in front of me. It’s hard to believe that all of this would never have existed if not for the presence of one magnanimous man in my life. There were those few books about Senick’s exploits; and then the tide of books that sprung from it, after Dale’s passing, about every character, place and adventure that fell in his wake. These figures have become my only true companions. I wasn’t ready for solitude back then, but I am now.

Sensing the imposition of approaching sunset, I swiftly exit my cabin. Walking into the ruby embrace of the town I once dreamed of settling in, the full circle journey of my life is not lost on me. I soon arrive at the border of the town, a rocky cliffside spiralling down into the mines.

“You shine. You are always shining”, I whisper gently. As I gaze into the distance, I grasp the pocket watch that he’d given me in exchange for one, meaningful favour. My eyes are now two stonefish in their focus, ready to wait out eternity. But they needn’t have to. I can tell, instinctively, that I am expected. As the last blood red embers of the sun die, I feel my body ascending, branching into flaxen tendrils of light, yielding to same celestial force that commands the universe. It is a force that I never truly understood, but never needed to. All that I need to know is that I can see for miles around me, all of the world for what it is, and for what I am as well. I am light in the coming dark and, regardless of where I am taken; I will set foot on Earth again to tell my tale.

I am the Southern Lights, as was he. And we will never want for inspiration again.