Car

Dear Matilda the walking and talking mannequin,

I said goodbye to my mother today or should I say she said goodbye to me. We had been on the road together for the last five years. I remember that first night together in the car when we left my father’s house. It was my twelfth birthday and they were arguing late at night. They were swearing at each other and then I heard a loud slapping sound from the kitchen and my mother soon came up the stairs and took me by the hand and led me out of the house and into the station wagon. I remember that first night in the car when we left the city and drove through the countryside and sitting in the back seat looking up at the thousands of stars in the cloudless night sky. We drove from one town to the next staying long enough for mum to take countless photographs of people and the town buildings. I remember driving over tall bridges high above the coastal rivers and looking at the mangrove swamps and the whit ibis fossicking in the mud. I remember looking up at the galahs perched high above the power lines on the side of the roads. I remember the many overnight caravans we stayed and meeting one of the owners Jim for the first time and how mum laughed at his strange stories of people who had stayed in his caravan park. Mum always sent him a postcard from each town we stopped at. One night we came to the town where my aunt lived and mum told me that she wanted me to stay there from now on. She told me she loved me and gave me two large boxes filled with many photographs taken during our five years on the road. She said she was going to live with Jim. I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again, but looking at those photographs now, won’t stop me from missing her.

A warm hello
from the inspector
of broken dreams.