Jack

 a creative piece of writing inspired by the ruby moonlight book by ali cobby eckermann that I did for schoolwork

Jack spits out the seawater, the mixture bitter and foul and lip-curling. Something sloshes in his stomach, lurching to the rhythm of the boat.  

His bones yearn for warmth.  

The air drains the fat from his skin, frigid, inching its way into the crevices of his mottled clothing. All he wants is his mother’s soothing touch, the warm soft pads on her fingertips traveling up his cheekbone and sweeping across his scalp. 

Jack’s heart is wracked with taut resignation. 

Jack slinks back to his bed, one foot behind the other. The linen is stiffer than the wooden floorboards. 

White faces spill out of the boat, chatter abundant in one corner with greenish, wan faces in the other. The only other signs of life are the paperbark trees, pared and stripped to the core by nature and reaching to the sky with shriveled, tenacious fingers. 

Jack is just another miner. There are grunts and inaudible murmurs of the others, mingled with the dull clank of beer mugs on tables. The sound is intermittent and indistinct in his ears, his vision blurring, yet his lips have not touched the mug of ale once. 

 

The makeshift hut is arid and plain, void of decoration. Rabbit skin rug. Three logs. A mirror. It is merely a place for rest, for Jack feels he has no home wherever he goes. As the sunlight dips and wanes below the horizon, dread settles like a stone in his stomach as he braces for the nighttime terrors. 

Someone watches Jack. He can feel their gaze as he washes, as he satiates himself with fire-roasted rabbit and billabong water. The presence is calming, tranquilising. He is a man of few words, but with an unquenchable thirst for company and solace. And pelts. 

Mellow gratitude warms him, and he leaves food for his companion. They reciprocate wholeheartedly. 

One day, the bushes crunch and black toes wriggle out the shrubbery. Something within Jack jolts. His veins tighten, pulse and his breath hitches. 

Her face is dark and smooth and glitters in the rural sunlight. Her arms are lean and supple, clinging onto the leaves. Her eyes are wide, radiant, like black rubies, like the gems he hunts for.  

He feels the spark, silent yet deafening in the air. A surge of fervent ardour, of fiery passion surges through his joints.  

She moves tentatively, with a bird-like grace. Head bowed, body crouched, legs loose and bent, she scuttles towards the hut. 

For she is his gem. His Ruby. His mind is less disarranged with the shrieks and the din of desolate nightmare and more with his ringlet haired dove. He watches her hip rise and fall, the padding of deep dark skin following the soft ebb and flow of inhalation and exhalation.  

But they will be caught. No such bliss lasts forever, however this realisation is ephemeral as he buries himself in the mild scent of wattle in her locks.  

But for now, they are one. Lover to lover. Person to person. Hand to hand, as Jack’s calloused finger traces the curvature of his lover’s palm. The deep rolling grunt of an emu echoes from outside the shack.