Dear reader, another thrilling installment awaits…..

As the rotodyne descends upon our hapless trio we pause to thank Gina, Australia’s richest woman for attending the GOP Fundraiser. Donald needs more money from Australians so that they can be free of the taint of Minerals derived income. It’s best looked after by those who know what best to do with it. Rather than the silly outmoded idea of a ‘Commonwealth’ and good governance.

With this in mind, and the neo-liberal experiment still playing out, we return to the coalface and the fate that awaits our trio. Out there on the dusty desiccated landscape of Australia’s dry interior.

Will ‘Lady Luck’ grace them with her spirit this time?

Or are the spirits on offer only methylated?

Read on, and find out.  And for those who are weak, suffer from a chronic condition or are addicted to day-time television, talkback radio or Sports bet 24/7 this might be as a good as it gets.

 

The engines changed tempo again, and then as the whirling blades slowed we could see individual blades with ‘Hancock Prospecting” stencilled to the undersides, and admired the Fuselage art, a picture of the boxing kangaroo and the caption ‘Make Australia GRATE AGAIN’.

Then, with everything suffused under the low hum of the turbine, the engines cut off completely. All we could hear were the ‘swish swish’ of the slowing blades, and the tick, tick, ticking of the cooling system. And before us, the sparkling silver duralinium fuselage and its mighty insect-like form prone as a praying mantis, a caddis fly or perhaps a dung beetle would after a day rolling dung, in seeking respite from the intensity of the central Australian heat. A dry heat that desiccated these three fragments of humanity to the very spot they stood, immobile, immute, and implacable to the fate that awaited them.

They still couldn’t see into the cockpit, and though they strained their eyes they still couldn’t make out who, (barely discernible as a grey shape within) drove the craft. And though they tried with every ounce of their being to hear, detect, glean some small signature of what lay within, they were unrewarded. It was as yet an enigma. And a paradox at that. And, they didn’t like it.

‘No sign of a door opening yet’, muttered Ces.

‘Nup’, replied Terry, ‘whoever it is, is laying on the suspense, and’…..  interrupted Quent. ‘ I just don’t feel good about this’.

Still, the Rotodyne just stood there. Barely twenty metres in front of them.

And then just as they looked about and realised there was no one else on board, something absolutely strange took place. Somewhere from within, they could hear a crackle, the sound of an intercom.  They realised an announcement of sorts would be made and at last they could determine their new protagonist, protector, foe. It would be revealed.

They strained in anticipation and what followed struck them immobile with raw unrestrained fear.

‘Two little boys had two little toys’.

It was worse than the ‘Candy Coloured Clown’

‘Each had a wooden horse

Gaily they played each summers day’

Whatever lurked inside…… it was beyond evil…

‘Warriors both of course

One little chap had a mishap

Broke off his horse’s head’

This was beyond anything Vladimir would do, it was beyond obscene

‘Wept for his toy then cried with joy

As his young playmate said’.

The trio by this time disconsolate, stood paralysed. Beneath them, a thin trickle of liquid betrayed their inner state, and the Camel’s, stuck more firmly than Araldite sagged on bottom lips rendered frozen.

‘Do you think I’d leave you dying’…….

And then from the Rotodyne

‘Ha ha, ha HAHAHAHAH’! A maniacal laugh. A laugh so filled with the paroxysms of pure insanity it rent the air and if as much as a breeze had interrupted the orchestrated trance of despair. They, all three of them almost died on the spot.

‘Did youse miss me boys’?

Another hysterical laugh. A laugh unhinged from humanity itself. A laugh Hyena-like in its intensity and hideousness.

‘You knew I’d never leave youse, me boys, and now it’s time for a little game.

And do youse know what it’s called me boys’?

‘Cluedo’? stammered Ces,

‘Good try Cecil me luv, but this game is called ‘Consequences’…

Ha ha’….

And the door, surgically, robotically and remotely opened. We could hear the internal air swish out of the pressurised cockpit and froze to what emerged, Jackboots, Pudgy Fish-net stocking legs, a Sobrani in a black cigarette holder, a hand dripping with bling, an officers uniform borrowed from Gestapo Central Casting and the face the face of Medusa itself. It was our long-time nemesis, our bête noir, our grief encapsulated and personified by one person,

It was Sophie.

Sophie had returned.

‘I betchya pleased to see me’.

Will our heroes get outta this un?  Find out in the next episode; ‘Sophies poor choice’, Or… ‘Sophie or Barnaby’s Joyce, either way you lose’.