I dig my toes further into the mud.

There are yabbies with snippy fingers in the bottom of the dam, they lay in wait for innocent feet and hands.

I am not afraid though.

I’d been nipped by a blue yabby once when I wore blue denim cut off shorts and a veil of innocent stupidity. That was the last day that Tommy ever spoke to me. I was completely embarrassed because I knew that he was too handsome for me, and I knew there was little hope. I tried though. I tried to impress him with my finger loops in poppys roll of string and I tried to impress him with my cute little denim cut offs. But it didn’t work. He just looked at me like a boy and slapped me on the back when I said something funny. When he pushed me into the water, I sunk down to the bottom of the dam and I opened my eyes but the darkness was there and I couldn’t see any yabbies or redemption. Something bit me on the thumb and I plunged out of that water like a great surging expulsion and I spluttered and screamed and I think I may have actually ran on water in my attempt to get out of there.

The boys all laughed at me and pointed and chortled and said things about me being such a girl.

They shook their heads and walked away.

Tommy went with them.

Nobody comes to the dam anymore.

I don’t mind because it’s my place to run away to when mum doesn’t care and dad cares too much.

I sit on the edge, where the mud is dry and cracked and I imagine each erosion to be a little road to somewhere not here.

I follow the trails with my fingers and each best one leads into the dam.

My feet rest in the cold murky water and it helps to numb my heart and my head.

I consider slipping my whole body in but I know that I would never sink low enough to hide in the mud like the yabbies do.

I feel guilty for baiting them into my world, for trapping them with morsels of a bigger catch. For hurting them.

This is their home.

I look back over my shoulder and I see smoke rising from our red bricked chimney. I know that my father has swung his axe and chopped wood for the fire. My mother is at work for the evening and soon it will be as dark as it was last night. The fog is rising across the paddocks and it’s getting cold.

That’s the place I have to return to.

That is my home.

There are snippy fingers there too.

© ryan