A dangerous moon wades low in an empty sky, the magpie shudders…

Frank Hull’s attempts at composing haiku were amateur. He was Aboriginal and the song- lines of his ancestry too fluent for the syllable breaks of a craft with origins in Japan. The 68 year-old rocked gently in a wheelchair on the verandah of his government subsidised unit. Cycloptic glow from the night’s satellite gazing upon everything sleeping with unease. Dreams in the cold pandemic fingers of uncertain shadows. Nightmares ripe for harvest.

Shivering magpie covered in tungsten night-shade, oblivion waits…

The argument of a young couple sent shards of black glass dancing in the autumn breeze. Their bunkering unable to save them momentarily. Grief sharing. All modes of hypothermia festering. Broken love in an air of financial woes. The flexible impatience of banking institutions reaching critical mass. It wasn’t even Frank Hull’s business, but in this post-meridian appeal, the moon low in an orbital calendar, gravity squeezing-out every black snake of frustration for humanity to sieve and slither.

The low-flying moon——

Sudden impact of a death-bird shrill collided with Frank Hull’s concentration. His arthritic claws dug into the notepad in his lap. The wandering lark of a Curlew. The systemic curses of imminent death in which Frank Hull was accustomed. A spirit from elsewhere; cold and hungry crossing the old man’s wake. He dropped his pen onto the concrete floor. Frank Hull knew more than anyone that the anti-matter of his Dreaming would always overcome an era of plague.

He reached for his pen and snapped the balance in his wheelchair. Frank Hull fell hard to the floor. Scuttled. Night-hawk furies danced before his eyes, as the moon looked on. He was not even lucky enough to catch himself in this unexplained reckoning; let alone to be caught by the invisible wraith of COVID-19…