Dear reader we return once again to our saga. 

We find our three sub- heroes Ces, Quent and Terry and their able saviour, (some might say part time nemesis) and protector Benny Boy Roberts Smith, arguably Australia’s most decorated soldier up on top. That’s it, after almost a year submerged beneath the irradiated wastelands of Maralinga, they’ve officially reached the surface, to find it, strangely deserted. That’s the funny thing about deserts there’s always a touch of desertification about. But, as they trudge towards the abandoned terminal that once, long ago teemed with feverish activity as Australia wrestled with the ‘Nuclear Age’, they wonder whether their quest, (to find the evil oppressor who had so cruelly defiled their tea-lady Ms Culthorpe on secondment to the Nations parliament as an intern),  for justice has been worth it. And thus dawns a deep seated discussion of a  philosophical and existential kind into the reason why.  Is it unreasonable to discuss the reason why? We have no idea, perhaps, with this instalment an answer may emerge, or like Coalition Climate policy submerge. Merge or submerge, any-fink can happen in the next five minutes… 

Read on….

‘Yup’! Terry demurred, ‘it’s funny, life has a habit of turning out different, there I was fifty, sixty years looking after ‘Radium Springs’, Australia’s first ever subterranean city and life just went on as usual up top and in the end I was just forgotten’!. 

‘Too right’! Quent Enthused, ‘you became a forgotten person’.. 

‘Yep’! Ces replied, ‘we all became forgotten people’. 

‘Ya know’!,  Benny Boy reflected;  ‘there’s a ring to that word, ‘the forgotten people’, like I’ve heard it before?

‘Nup’!, Ces replied, ‘whatever forgotten people may have meant in olden days Australia, it’s been forgotten, that’s at the core of being a forgotten person’. 

‘Unless you’ve forgotten to call yourself a forgotten person’? 

Being a forgotten person? Quent chewed on the issue, there was something paradoxical about talking about a forgotten person, when even the act of talking about it meant that whatever it was that had been forgotten, hadn’t been quite forgotten. He proffered; ‘What is really at the core of it is the tendency to forget’?

‘In what respect’? Terry enquired.. 

‘I dunno , I’ve forgotten’.. 

‘Then whatever it was is totally forgettable, so….. 

 

‘I know’! Benny Boy wryly said, taking a puff on one of Terrys Camels.. ‘Forget about it’!. 

Dear reader, whilst they ruminated about the ‘forgotten people’ epithet, they felt the warmth of the sun and reflected on the surreal beauty of inland Australia, and rejoiced in the bounty that Atomic energy would unleash on Australia. And perhaps  for its native inhabitants a new opportunity to lift them from the grip of the stone age.

‘Well, we’d better start walking, cos if we don’t, that bloody terminal over there will disappear as if it were a mirage’. 

‘Yep, let’s make tracks, and just for good measure’, and with a professionalism of the highest order Benny proceeded to cover our advance upon the cracked, sandy, weed strewn hard- stand of what used to be the refuelling depot at Maralinga. The old terminal still welcoming newcomers cheerily as it had done since the mid fifties. As if, after all these years, nothing had ever really changed!

Benny Boy, in the off chance of their nemesis Dutto or Sophie chose the stairwell and chambers as their route of pursuit,  emptied his back pack of Claymores, Torpex, Cordite, Gelignite and Roman Candles, (for artistic effect) and proceeded with fuse-wire, trip-wire and piano-wire to prepare the exit stairwell for demolition. 

‘I’ll put a five minute fuse on this lot and it’ll make sure that no one else ever uses that door’. 

‘Sounds good’! They all agreed and as they began trudging across the sandy space that was once a runway, they could hear Benny Boy whistling a few verses from  ‘Two Little Boys’, and  lighting the fuse and then following them with a quickened step..

As they approached the terminal they could see that it hadn’t been used for years and years. For a start, the flag pole was all rusty, and the wind sock at the end of the tarmac, just looked tattered and worn. ‘As it had run out of puff’, Ces Wryly remarked.   ‘Not far, I wonder if there’s any food on offer’?

‘Wouldn’t think so been abandoned for night on sixty years, 

I dunno could be some tins of baked beans or Spam? They can last centuries  and maybe even a few tubes of Vic in the fridge?

Dream on’, Ces replied, ‘there’ll be nothing, but there may be a radio receiver, and we can call for help’. 

With the word ‘HELP’ they all blanched. So far they’d been in a lot of trouble and not much help. Help had just become another four-letter word. 

Helplessly SO!

Will they find salvation?

Find out in the next desiccated episode, ‘Does Spam last a hundred years’? or ‘Baked beans may be pre heated at Maralinga’?