It's a cow's life.

In February 2016 I went to New Zealand with Karl and we lived like kings. For a month we ate out for three meals a day and drank beer for seven nights a week, with travellers ¹ from all over the world. We saw mountains, waterfalls, lakes and glaciers, cliff dived, jet skied and bungee jumped. Having renovated my flat and bought a new car the previous month, this perhaps was not the most financially sensible time to adopt a ‘just say yes!’ attitude to holidaying with friends, and NZ was not cheap. On my return I received a message, “Do you wanna come to Burning Man in August?” ‘Just say yes’ took the wheel and I grinned in the passenger seat. When another mate announced his engagement, the stag-do was destined for Las Vegas. I buckled my seatbelt and Jus’ winked and accelerated, but we were running on fumes. You cannot just say yes with no money.

Western Australia is bigger than Middle Earth, but it's mostly a barren wasteland. That is why the WA Police Force pays officers a premium to work in remote locations, or to be posted in the country, known as country postings. “No worries,” I thought. Yes, I could do that. In a quick couple of years I could clear my debt, pay for festivals and weddings and probably get a decent wedge saved up, it was an easy decision. I analysed my options systematically, filtering out postings with too few people, or that were too isolated, too far from civilisation, or that simply did not pay enough to mitigate the detriment. ³ With my shortlist ready, I checked for vacancies and there it was: Norseman. Only a seven hour drive from Perth and one of the highest paying. The job had been advertised for eight weeks with no applicants. It really was too easy.

If you saw Norseman on a map you could be forgiven for thinking it might be quite pleasant. Halfway between the beaches of Esperance and the mines of Kalgoorlie, the picturesque town rests quietly on the shores of Lake Cowan. Norseman is a haven for those preparing to drive through the vast expanse known as the Nullarbor Plain, an epic 1700km pilgrimage across Australia. I learned Norseman was home to some two hundred or so people, who were mostly employed by the long-established gold mine. The town was host to golf tournaments and horse races and had a grocery, a pub and a petrol station. What more would I need? Yes. I arrived in March, with smiling, open-minded optimism. My three bedroom house was provided free of cost and I excitedly designated one spare room as my office and the other for exercise; so much was to be achieved. The living room was large enough that you really could swing any number of animals around in there. ⁴ Work was slow but relaxed. We never ventured out too far in case we were called to an incident in town, which was a rare occurrence. Nobody else used the town’s gym, which was well equipped and near my house, so I always had it to myself. As the months grew colder my days were spent in the bush land, chopping firewood. At first, briefly, with an axe but mostly with a cordless jigsaw with a long blade, believe it or not. Such is the power of modern batteries. In the evenings, post workout, I’d cook one of my growing repertoire of dishes and read a book in front of an open fire, satisfyingly burning through that endless reading list we all have. I really thought I could enjoy it.

The stark reality stood in front of me the whole time, staring me in the face, but it took months to come into focus. Was it blind optimism or was it active delusion? The living room with two sofas, one which would never be sat on. The pictures I proudly selected and carefully displayed, that no one else would ever see. I watched comedy shows, force-fed happiness, my laughter echoing around the pretend home and dissipating through the vacant space, never to be heard by another person. When the amusement subsided I was left with the loud silence of no-one-else-is-here. My work day would be filled with vacuous tasks, utterly devoid of meaning. In 40 degree heat and no shade, wearing a fly net I would have dozens of flies buzzing closer to my face than I was able to distinguish. There I stopped cars to breath-test drivers. They had either just driven for two hours or were about to; not one person was drunk, ever. After weeks of negative results, witless supervisors still deemed this a worthy use of time, us collecting inconsequential statistics that were not collated anywhere, data without purpose. Standing roadside on the shores of Lake Cowan - a barren salt lake - I was engulfed by bleak emptiness.

I never understood what it meant to ‘have demons’. It is something I had always rolled my eyes at, sceptically shaking my head; It keeps the eyes rolling, I suppose. I now know the demon is conceived in meaninglessness and gestates in loneliness. It warms itself at those glowing coals of anxiety in the pit of your stomach, your own weighted shadow, cast over yourself. When you finally turn off the light to go to sleep and close your eyes, it is waiting for you inside your eyelids, inescapable, it's whispered ethos, “What’s the point. Give up. Do you want it to be over? Do you? JUST SAY YES.”

August came and I was packed and ready for my drive back to Perth to catch my flight the next day. Our shift almost over, Freddy and I were on the road, passing time, driving around the usual spots; the non operational gold mine, decrepit with rot and rust, the derelict stables and overgrown race track, the empty, dilapidated houses scattered across the dirt streets, all remnants of better times. The phone rang. Freddy answered, nodding, “Uh-huh, uh-huh.” It was a double-fatal on the highway a two hour drive east, further away from the airport, further away from my freedom. It felt like the demon smelt my imminent escape and snatched me away from it like the Balrog ahold of Gandalf's foot.

On arrival I saw a speeding 4x4 had been stopped suddenly by a tree, which barely flinched at the impact. I inspected the entangled wreckage, stepping through the debris to peer over the crumpled bonnet. The still faces of an elderly couple gazed back at me, driver and passenger. Both had their eyes open. There was no sign of pain, they just appeared switched off. Their vacant lifelessness was familiar. By the time the guys from the Crash Unit arrived it was getting dark. I helped extract the corpses, bags of once-were-bones, carefully tagged and zipped up, everyone sombre but pragmatic. There were people waiting to take the bodies to the morgue and tow the vehicle to its equivalent. Freddy and I, drained of energy and conversation, packed up and set off west. We had hours of hypnotic white lines ahead. It was like the horizon was firing a space invaders laser at us. Soon we came across a truck, pulled over, hazard lights blinking. We slowed and the driver waved us down.

“Hey, you guys have guns, you can kill it, put it out of its misery.”

The cow mooed as it lay in the road, legs splayed outwards at unnatural angles. It had roamed on to the highway and was hit by a vehicle that drove on, somehow oblivious. After a grim conversation, rock, paper, scissors decided who would end it, and Freddy’s scissors cut my paper. You can't see fear in a cow’s eyes, they are just dark and open. Could he see the fear in mine? I was about to make them vacant and lifeless too. Until then I was victim to the emptiness. At the pull of a trigger I would become the cause of it. It was explained to me how I should aim the gun behind the ears pointing forwards and not between the eyes as they have thick skulls and the bullet might not penetrate and could just bounce off. I imagined the phone call to my mum, “I’m sorry to inform you... Ray didn’t make it. I know, I know. Oh, how did it happen? He got hit by a ricochet off a cow’s forehead.”

BANG ⁵

Made it to Vegas.

1 Travellers. So, 80% children. However the remaining 20% were actual cool, interesting cats

2 They weren’t cats.

3 There is not such an amount.

4 Dead kangaroos, ostriches, snakes, camels, stray dogs, and of course cows, were all options available at some point.

5 The gun was aimed behind the ear and the cow was shot once in the head. Then suddenly the cow mooed at us, like nothing had happened. It was like it was goading us on, “Pff! You call that a gunshot?! Dickheads!” We all just stood there and looked at each other, shocked. It took six shots in all. RIP x