Billabong Blues

Bloody smart alec fish! thought Jack Warragul, his rod snapping back into shape. The elusive barramundi once again had won his precious bait.

Jack sat up. Glaring into the dormant waters of the billabong, he gave a deep sigh, then sat back on a rock. He then discarded his line. This was sheer futility, he thought.

Reaching past his fishing tackle, he laid his hands on his next best passion, his guitar. "I always say", he mused, "if you can't catch the little buggers, you might as well entertain 'em", and he started to pick a melody.

Jack, the son of a local cattle farmer, was renown throughout the area for his rebellious attitude, and more notably, for his strange disappearances - actually fishing trips - and, of course, his wild parties, where he played his unorthodox music to those who wished to listen.

However, Jack also had ambition. He believed in destiny. He laughed at the world's incongruities, but simultaneously desired to share his dreams and aspirations with it. A large part of this was his music. Music that he insisted could liberate humanity.

He laid back, daydreaming, by the deserted billabong. He imagined he saw his Dad, yelling at him, teasing him . . . Les Warragul hated his son's guitar picking, thought it was a complete waste of time. Jack could see his brothers and sisters, all nineteen of them, talking behind his back, whispering to each other about their oddball brother. Jack begin to dream deeply.

There before him lay a pulsating mass, becoming a kaleidoscope, of motion, seething with a powerful sound, something he had never seen nor heard. The mass became a crowd, an audience. Lights danced, reflected and shattered into fragments. But the enormous crowd was not significant, it was he who was the centripetal presence. This was different, radical, it was neither an extravaganza of sound, nor a carnival, nor a party, but perhaps it was all those fused into one.

Suddenly there was intense light, intense concentration of music, to the event. Blurred visions rushed past before him and the crowd was lifted from the ground, weaving through a void, passing between each other. They entered into a new dimension. There was peace, renewal. Serenity. Then Jack was walking. It was idyllic. He was Morrison or Hendrix, or somebody. He walked into a street. There he glimpsed a pretty girl. They met. They walked. Then they headed toward an object. They entered a glass elevator and sat. Talked. Gazed into each others eyes. They kissed. They embraced. They started to make . . .

Jack was awakened. Startled, shocked!
"Crikey . . ?" Whirling around the billabong was a rogue willy-willy.

"What the . . ?" yelled Jack, as he ducked and weaved, the willy-willy darting at his head. It must be alive, he thought. His hair blew wildly as he grappled desperately, trying to save his guitar from being smashed to pieces. Then . . . it stabilised. It centred on the billabong and slowly sank, becoming a large whirlpool, sucking and snorting before Jack's bewildered eyes.

There was finally one last huge withdrawal motion from the billabong, coming from the water and flying through the air something headed towards Jack.

He closed his eyes in fear, he could do nothing except sit there. Ker-plop! There, landing upon his lap was that ever-elusive barramundi. He jerked his head back and roared with laughter.

"Never mind, old mate", he quipped, "it wouldn't be very sporting of me to accept this catch". And he threw the fish back. Jack sat back on his rock, seized his guitar, and played. And what he played was truly the billabong blues.

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