S Sorrensen
Nimbin. Anzac day, 11.20am
On the street there are people holding flags, and remembering wasted lives. Lest we forget. But Australia loves war; we’re constantly at war. A war on anything: Syria, terrorism, drugs. Never mind the losing.
How can we remember when we have forgotten?
It’s a riddle. Probably created by that mad Tea Party member, the Hatter, to confound and confuse.
So, I’m off to see the Cat. He’s wise. I’m going underground. Yes, not everything happens on the street. There’s a subterranean life in Nimbin, an underbelly to the rainbow snake. The village has a rabbit hole. And I’m going in.
Slipping behind the police car and into an alley, I nod to two sentinels who nod back and disappear in a puff of smoke. I walk down, around, and up to an old wooden door. It creaks open. (Not for dramatic effect, but because of do-it-yourself door-hanging. Bush builders…)
I plunge into a dark room where the only light comes from computer screens. There are banks of them. As my eyes adjust, I see faces grinning in the digital gleam. Here and there, now and then, a red flare among the blue glare. I hear the tapping and swooshing of email traffic. The new age. I remember when a hard drive was the road to Lismore.
I wander past nooks that open into rooms where boxes are stacked, banners stashed and mattresses propped; and into crannies that swell into kitchens armed with organic coffee and chipped mugs.
‘Is he here?’ I ask a woman watching water boil.
‘Tea?’ she asks, reaching for a jar that says ‘DONT DRINK ME’.
‘Um, no thanks. Is he here?’
Her phone chimes. She holds it to her ear. She listens, and then, angrily: ‘What do you mean? Tomorrow is too late. I want them now! Now!’
Heads will roll. There’s a lot to be done. Nimbin is a ship chugging against the tide, and this is the engine room – a bit smokey, but well oiled and operational. As the world is swept along on a current of lies presented as truth, Nimbin’s navigators plot the alternative course, destination uncertain. It’s difficult to read the chart; even for an astrologer. But the tide is turning.
The woman shoves her phone in a pocket and says, ‘He’s out the back.’ She flicks a dreadlock at a door.
I pass nine people on a verandah: four seated on sofas, three gathered around a MardiGrass program, two cutting things with scissors.
‘Where is he?’ I ask. They point their scissors to a lower, shadowy space, covered with tarps.
I descend steps, weave past a cob oven, a tiny dog in a police uniform, a young bloke with a pipe painting signs, more sofas, and more people. Always I ask, ‘Where is he?’ Always the answer leads me into more places with more sofas and more people. I’m getting flustered. And lost. The engine room is pumping, but the fumes are getting to me…
War is dumb. If you want people to not bomb you, don’t bomb them. Simple. But, as the Cat once said, ‘To the royal guards of this realm, we are all victims in-waiting.’
I follow a man carrying bamboo poles. He follows a path that leads to an opening in a hedge. A way out! I rush through it – and burst into open space.
I’ve re-surfaced. There’s sunshine, and the air is different. I recognise the laundromat. I’m back on the street.
A bugle sounds, mournfully. Like me, it laments the insanity, deplores the riddle.
I walk towards the service. Lest we forget. Gallipoli was a disaster. War is pain.
Suddenly the Cat appears, grinning like, well, a cat.
‘Only the insane equate pain with success,’ he says.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
