Free The Rest is Weight (UQP Short Fiction) by Jennifer Mills Page A

‘Didn’t have to stand over them. They know we could cut them off in a second. Besides, those kids need shoes.’
    I wasn’t sure this last was true, but I nodded. ‘I’ll start on the report tonight.’
    I hit a sandy patch and kept both hands on the wheel. To my right the moon had risen over the rocks, yellow and weak as though its batteries were running low. I concentrated on the road.
    ‘You’ll probably be tired from driving,’ he said. ‘Still, no harm making a start I suppose.’
    I smiled inwardly at the method of his pressure. Corrugations in the track kept us silent for a while.
    I arrived here by following a trail of work I found myself good at. It was always obvious to me that I would get an internship and go on to Canberra. I had no real sense of lust, either for good deeds or power. I was simply moving ahead in the most logical way. My father was a military bureaucrat, my mother his wife. I know there are paths carved out for us if we can hold to reason.
    An erratic bat dashed in front of the windscreen and vanished. Instinctively I pressed on the brakes, then remembered my defensive driving course. The last thing we needed was to be bogged out here, or worse, become one of the upturned shells of cars that littered the road. I shifted in the seat.
    ‘You have the stats I emailed you for tomorrow?’ I asked, so that the Minister would not offer to drive, not that he ever has.
    ‘What? Oh, yes,’ he said. His tone was distracted. When I looked at him he turned away from me and faced straight ahead as if he had been caught lying.
    ‘I can resend them if you need me to.’
    He yawned. ‘Shame that airline went bankrupt. We could have chartered a flight.’
    I didn’t remind him it was his idea to drive, to ‘get to know the land’, as he put it. I was too busy concentrating on the road. The dirt was turning half to gravel, we were almost at the tarmac. I slowed for a wallaby that shot in front of us and away into the darkness, safe.
    When we reached the paved road, I was so relieved that I let my foot relax on the accelerator. I opened the window to let in some real air. The air conditioning made my throat dry, but the dust was no less irritating. I closed the window and stared into the dark beyond the headlights.
    I saw something. I had to squint to focus, it was dark, but there was something there. A vague shape on the road ahead. As we approached, it grew into a man. He was not waving, simply standing in the dirt, one hand covering his chest. Must have been an accident, I thought, a breakdown. I scanned the ditches either side for overturned cars. Nothing. When I looked ahead again he seemed to be the same distance away, just on the edge of visibility. I slowed down.
    ‘What is it?’ the Minister said. He leaned forward in his seat.
    ‘There’s a man up ahead,’ I said. ‘I hope he’s not in trouble.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Right there,’ I said, as patiently as I could.
    ‘I can’t see a thing.’ He rubbed his eyes.
    I refrained from mentioning his missed optometrist’s appointments, because I was his assistant, not his wife. Instead I raised a finger, but was forced to withdraw it. The road ahead was empty.
    ‘He’s gone,’ I said. ‘Must have walked off into the bush.’
    The Minister stared at me. ‘There’s nothing out here.’
    ‘Must be an outstation or something,’ I reassured him. ‘The asphalt.’
    Then again, maybe asphalt did not mean houses here.
    ‘I’ll call the office first thing in case any of those figures have changed,’ I said. ‘We don’t want to get caught out by some small inaccuracy.’ I was speaking automatically, not really concentrating, because I was wondering how anyone could have gone so far ahead of us on foot.
    Spirit man , the woman said. Just a teenager giving herself nightmares for kicks. But the imaginary bone in the fist at her throat. The pity in her voice: You can’t see him. Their laughter rang in my head, sneaking in under the