Small Towns in Australia

On a previous post, we published a story about a person from a small town in Australia fantasizing about fleeing to a small town outside Tromsø, Norway, after a 10 second inner journey prompted by his suspicion of having accidentally killed his two year old cousin while backing up the courtyard in his car.

But what would happen if he indeed disappeared? How important would it actually be for them to never see the murderer of that little girl again? His entire family were now running in slow motion from the garden table to the car, either to kill him or to see the body of a little child that turned out to be simply a log. They would believe he was living in Norway, exiled, overwhelmed by pain and fear, fearful, phobic etc. They could also suspect he had gone mad, like those people who lose their memory after a bad earthquake that destroys their home.

His family might as well think him delusional, sick, roaming the cold streets of Northern Europe, begging in corners. They might even forgive him because they would believe that his happiness had forever been extinguished. They might even feel offended if anyone would dare stain his memory by saying that someone had seen him laughing in a distant Norwegian city; that someone had seen him drinking in a bar or making money, having a decent job, seducing a woman, stroking a cat, or giving a few Norwegian Crowns to a beggar at a train station.

His family would not believe that anyone would be capable of such weakness, of such disgraceful oblivion, of killing and not mourning; of escaping and not thinking every day about the summer afternoon when a little girl had been killed by their own car. It would only take ten eternal seconds until they saw the log and forgot all about it.