AN ANCIENT ANCESTOR

Arriving at Peats Ridge, they set up camp and went for a walk around the grounds. Crews were putting the finishing touches to various stalls and installations. Tepees even. There was abounding knotted hair about. And natural fibres ruled the day. Pity those, said Louis, with an inclination for nylon, for it would be tolerated in tents but not much else. Coat yourself in synthetics and watch your chance of a warm embrace sink like the waste in one of the many composting toilets situated around the place. Susie squeezed his hand and sent some kind of sedative to the fraying synapses of his brain. She called it love. Come nightfall, the crowd had grown significantly. In their circular wanderings, Susie came across her plane sharing ticket tout, and in turn met others who met others who met others. Plentiful introductions were made but Louis could barely keep still. He said it felt like an ancient ancestor was rummaging around his insides, eventually finding two sticks and rubbing them together while using the lining of his stomach for support. Soon there was a spark and he settled on allowing the smoke to rise out through his eyes. If that couple of scarecrows nearby weren't careful, he thought, they might catch alight. Susie, he said, was looking luminous, a different kind of light was inside of  her, one warm and comforting, welcoming, and you would be a fool not to want to be around it as much as you were able. But Louis could barely keep still. Weren't these ever grinning revellers aware of the enemy forces just over the cusp of the hill? They hadn't so much as a pitchfork with which to defend themselves, and the river wouldn't prevent even the most decrepit of demons from crossing. Ah the river. The river failed to resemble in any way the winding blue treat on the cover of the festival program. The one in front of them was a thin shallow brown line that in parts appeared at best ankle deep. So much for the rush of water whacking on the head the latest onset of his finicky illness. It easily compared unfavorably, he said, with the river in Bellingen, if such comparisons were sought. Then maniacal laughter broke out over somewhere near the beer tent. Susie stole away from her admirers for a moment to inform Louis about the closeness of their camp. In their aimless wandering, he said, his sense of direction had broken into several jagged pieces that could have sliced the length of his arms wide open. She said he should probably lie down. She offered her kind flesh for company but he told her to stay on and enjoy herself. He said he'd sleep it off. He kissed her and then eased off into the darkness, turning sharply on hearing the disembodied voice call out for the third time what sounded remarkably like: You ... You, you, you. And although it gradually lessened in intensity as he got closer to camp, it was still faintly there as he zipped up the tent and lay back on the mattress, trying to focus on the nearby beating drum as best he was able, in the hope of soon being blessed by the onset of replenishing sleep, for which he waited and waited and waited.