Open Writing

'Have you checked that the turkeys are all in their yard Colleen?' my ever busy father called as he hurried by.

To make sure the turkeys, all forty-three of them, were safely locked up for the night was my job. My father was raising them for the Christmas market and all day they roamed free in the house paddock, coming in at sunset to feed and roost in their own high-fenced yard. Sometimes a rebellious youngster lingered, ignoring hovering darkness and the shrouded shapes of foxes, with disastrous results.

As I walked towards the dam, the turkey yard, and the now deserted sheep yards, going further away from the warmth of the house, going further into the shadowy country twilight, I was aware that I was later than usual in going about my task. No ribbons of colour remained in the eastern sky, no arrows of light glanced upwards. A small chill wind had risen and overhead a late formation of swans cried harshly. At least, I thought, the gobblers will be more interested in finding the best spot to roost rather than terrorizing me. When once I had admitted to being afraid of them my family laughed, 'They're all bluff, all that ruffling of feathers and gobbling is just for show.' Well, it may have been—but I always carried a stick, just in case.

The gate was heavy, propped open by a rock. I went in, checked the water trough and got some more feed from the shed especially for the hens that I felt might have been bullied out of the way earlier. It also made it easier for me to do a quick count. Tonight, in the deepening dusk, this was not easy.

I hurried, shut the gate firmly, put my stick against the fence and turned to go. Then I saw it. The posts of the turkey yard were strong, split trees. On the third one from where I stood, momentarily transfixed, hung a shape, black and long, the image of a bulky head, body and tail.

I fled. I burst into the lighted kitchen, gasping for breath, gasping out my fear.

My father took his shot-gun from the back verandah. 'Probably a fox,' he said, but I knew foxes were not black and nor did they climb high fences. I trembled in my mother's arms waiting for a shot. None came. My father returned laughing. 'Oh Colleen, what a silly you are! There was nothing there but a post that had been burnt in a bush fire—that's your black shape.'

In the brightness of day I saw what he meant, but, try as I might, I was unable to throw off my cloak of unease, my incipient fear.

And I never did. With the aid of a small monetary bribe I swapped jobs with my more prosaic sister. Soon after that, I went to boarding school but during school holidays, even into adulthood, I knew pale fear whenever I saw that post. And were it still there I could not be alone with it at twilight.

Shivers trill up my spine as I write.

© Colleen McMillan