The Death of Mundy

Fosco Antonio

A flame caught Mundy’s attention. He became absorbed by its fluctuating life. It was fleetingly burning a large log; burning the wood yet without being in contact with the surface. The flame would grow and diminish in size, changing in colour from reddish to bluish. By becoming absorbed in the life-movements of the flame, Mundy’s attention was drawn away from another place, a place he did not want to be.

A thought passed through Mundy’s mind. A metamorphism was taking place. Fire, in a way almost baptismal, was transforming dead wood into some other form, to begin again a new cycle of life. It was as if the life-force, muted in the wood, had been liberated to be of service to all life in the universe. Mundy was surprised, pleasantly so, with this depth of spiritual thought. Such thinking was new to him.

His intellect, induced by mantra, ceased listening to the ‘speaking’ of the psyche. Story-telling images of his parents stopped. Yet the emotional residue of feeling lingered. A child-like pleading, from somewhere in his being, asked to be disconnected from this burden. To whom the pleading was directed, Mundy did not know.

Mundy had managed life’s affairs, his political career, his family, with reference to no force other than self. His talents, his political skills. ‘Nobody owes me anything’ was Mundy’s central life Rule. Yet, now faced with inner reality, he sought greater guidance.

Analysis was momentary, the psyche moved, leaving the intellect only to observe. It observed sadness move to anger, anger to self-pity. Moving again to anger at feeling self-pity. Then guilt at feeling anger. Guilt puzzled Mundy. Only Catholics felt guilt, or so he had always thought. He had always behaved correctly. Even in political life he had gone no further than the acceptable boundaries of politics’ theatrical violence. So why the guilt?

Staring into the flame, Mundy was induced into a slightly hypnotic state. Images of a dream reappeared.

Mundy felt as if he were in a large room, filled with bluish light. He was without body awareness. There were no walls, no sense of containment or boundary. A space empty, yet filled with ‘something’. Maybe a presence. Maybe Mundy had reached the top of the ladder. He was unsure and frightened.

A figure became visible at the other end of the space. Mundy was drawn towards it. Getting closer he could see the outline of a naked body. Seen from behind, sitting on the floor, stooped over. Large body proportions led Mundy to conclude it was that of a male. The head became clearer; hair was grey and thinning, body skin was pale white and cadaverous. Mundy sensed the body was that of a dead man.

Nearing it, Mundy became more frightened. Frightened of ‘catching death’, frightened of staring into the face of a dead man. And frightened of being stared at by ‘death’.

Mundy was standing very near, though still behind the corpse. He was trembling in fear yet was still without body awareness. The dead body turned to face Mundy. Yet there was no moving force visible. Mundy stared downwards at the front of the naked corpse, staring into the face.

A cold presence filled the space of the dead body. Maybe the still-clinging soul, not knowing where else to go. The eyes were open but dead, the mouth too was open but dead; a dead face but wanting to say something, wanting to give Mundy a message. Yet it could not do so. Physical mechanisms of communication were now impotent.

Mundy became attentive to the dead man’s face. It was Gough-like in features and outline, so too was the body. The body of a big man. Maybe it was Gough. But maybe not. Mundy was confused, his intellect attempting to reconstruct the face for recognition, seeking a pattern. His psyche, disconnected from his thoughts, was in total disarray.

Mundy’s eyes followed a path down the front of the dead man’s body: eyes… mouth… neck, chest, stomach… then blank! No image. Like television with the plug suddenly pulled. Mundy’s imagination switched off, he returned to his bodily reality. The flame reappeared. He was trembling.

...

A protocol staff person in correct attire, standing at the correct distance to allow appropriate physical space, with correct voice tone asked whether ‘the Prime Minister was now ready?’

Mundy registered on the words ‘Prime Minister’. That was him. He was being called. His psyche switched. He would become the ‘Prime Minister’.

Professionalism of support staff is not in its invisibility at servicing important persons, extraordinary persons, holders of public office. No! Professionalism is in theatre. A supporting actor inducing the psyche of a mediocre principal into the theatre-space of being important. Mundy had long learnt a maxim of political theatre: become the image.
Mundy stood up. His psyche cast its troubles into the fire. The imagination watched the flickering flame incinerate his cares. Political theatre beckoned. Mundy was becoming the image.

Political theatre is not art theatre. Art theatre actors interpret images of reality leading the imagination of the viewer to witness deeper reality. Political theatre is deception.

Protocol staff person led Mundy out of the study. Protocol staff moved at calculated slowness, calculated distance between himself and Mundy. Protocol staff was out in front but not ‘leading the way’, nor ‘guiding the way’, nor ‘showing the way’. No! Holder of highest public office in the land cannot be in any other position than that of Leadership. Protocol staff walked in front as ‘announcer’. Leader of Nation is passing by.

The two-man theatre piece exited from the study to walk in ceremonial slowness along a long corridor. Theatre was to an invisible audience. For Mundy, the People were watching, the Nation was watching, the Media was watching, the mother of God was watching. However, protocol staff’s theatre was only existential. He fantasised homosexual orgasms.

Portraited Patriarchs of the five-generation media dynasty lined the corridor walls. Australianisation was visible in the continuity of the proud man of Anglo Empire, the founder, to the present day Head – a man in a business suit.

Theatre reached the ‘smoking room’. A men’s space. Protocol staff, entering first, stepped to one side, announcing as Mundy entered the space of the open door, ‘the Prime Minister, Sir.’

‘Sir’ was not Mundy. ‘Sir’ was the Patriarch. He could look big. He could look old. He could look brutal. He could look charming. He could look a meat-eater. He could look street-cunning. He could look worldly-wise. But the ‘look’ didn’t matter. He was Power! Mundy had come to the mountain.

A slightly stooped elderly man in an expensive dark suit stood in front of a large, imperial, though understated-imperial, couch. A small coffee table was in front of him. Another couch, completely without any touch of imperialism, was beside the coffee table.

Mundy momentarily paused at the smoking room entrance, allowing the announcement of his Prime Ministerial coming to be absorbed by the walls. The walls possessed passive life; they were a silent audience.
Theatre changed. Mundy was no longer principal. ‘Sir’ was the cue: the Patriarch was now the main actor. Mundy lost possession of that place in psyche terrain where he had stood as ‘Prime Minister’. His psyche took a deep breath, filling with air his masculinity. To compensate, the intellect overstated with a bluff external theatre of Prime Ministerial bravado.

As Mundy crossed the floor, the Patriarch remained silent. He was a hard man. Facial expression said nothing, but a nothingness expressing contempt. Contempt was not for a human being of lesser tribal authority. That is a question of birth. Contempt was for a poor actor whose acting lacked psychic depth. Mundy was Prime Minister, but only by smoke and mirrors.

The two men exchanged the usual scripted courtesy welcome, with the Patriarch motioning Mundy to the smaller couch, his body language expressing invitation, but an invitation which if refused becomes an order. The two men sat simultaneously. Mundy’s couch had a false bottom, so that Mundy found himself looking up at the Patriarch. Reality must never empower illusion.

On seating, the Patriarch motioned with his right hand, ‘This is Jonathan’. Neither man cast eyes on Jonathan. Yet his presence had to be acknowledged. A presence welcomed by nobody. Necessary to the Patriarch, loathed by Mundy. It was a three-man theatre piece.

Mundy knew Jonathan. Everybody knew Jonathan. Jonathan was a snake. He was of slight but indifferent physique. He occupied the suit in which he was dressed. He had a largish head, hair close cut, and bow tie. His face was dead. A permanent manic grin was nailed to it. His eyes had energy rather than life. Flickering energy of malice and evil, a vulture about to prey.

Mundy’s political instincts spoke the obvious: there was danger. He looked down at the coffee table. He could see a vague, diffused reflection of Jonathan standing beside the Patriarch. Two objects were on the table: a large bowl of bananas and the latest edition of the Patriarch’s flagship magazine.

The bananas puzzled Mundy. His political calculus could make no conclusion about their presence. But they meant something. Everything has meaning in surrealist political theatre.

Surrealist politics is a duality of truth and deception. Mundy took pride in his ability to decipher true meaning from deception. Mundy had long learnt: deceptive meaning is not illusion. Deceptive meaning is a set-up. The deceived will be cannibalised, after being castrated. Political castration is the necessary symbolic act of disempowerment, like Jesus being stripped naked before crucifixion.

Mundy was pleased with the magazine. Very pleased! Even a touch proud. So pleased that his thoughts moved away from the instinctual distrust. He forgot about the bananas. The magazine had been positioned such that Mundy had the best-angle view of the front cover.
Mundy noted the pleasing approach. Never be pleased by others being pleasing, spoke Mundy’s political inner voice. Yet the intellect responded like it had with the bananas.

Mundy studied the front cover image. Full face of a late-thirties woman, vibrant, and with sufficient traces of a girlish smile to give an ingredient of youth. A true political asset. ‘He’s my mate,’ read the main caption. A passport-size photo of the ‘mate’ worked the subtext. An early forties man with the Camelot hue of President Kennedy. He was Mundy’s Minister for Communications. But he was more than that! He was Mundy’s political son.

The image was the end product of media engineering, developed several weeks previously. Mundy had involved himself personally. Mundy prided himself on being ‘schooled’ in creating political perception. Not gifted but schooled. Mundy boasted being gifted at nothing; he was skilled only by diligent ‘schooling’. Mundy’s most personally satisfying victories were against more gifted opponents, defeating them by disciplined application of his political science.

Mundy had read Machiavelli. Pretending, of course, never to have done so. All political practitioners pretend never to have read Machiavelli.

The front cover image was the first media event of the party’s re-election strategy. Deep market research had shown the government was vulnerable in inner-Melbourne and Sydney, constituencies that Mundy detested. Especially inner-Melbourne. Inner-Sydney he could cope with, just a matter of more tax cuts. But inner-Melbourne?

‘Ambience lifestylers… absolute fuckin’ wankers.’ Swearing was not normally part of Mundy’s language, but thinking about inner-Melbourne brought out the worst. He detested them. And they detested him. Mundy, in virtual reality space, was at all off-Brunswick Street chardonnay dinner parties. As the on-going joke. Ambience lifestylers had read Rousseau, Marx, understood false consciousness experimenting with soft spirituality, incense-burning Buddhist meditation. Rejected Christianity as life-hating and neurotic, a post-modernist dead narrative.

Yet, not all narratives had thawed into fragmentation… not so the pursuit of affluence, a story-telling that ambience lifestylers clung to as true believers. There, Mundy had narrator status. That’s why they detested him. They took his tax bribes and restauranted at throw-away worker eateries. They claimed intellectual sophistication, but Party demographic studies revealed the truth. They were marketing houses’ jingle merchants, creators of consumer market masturbation fantasies.
Of course, Mundy himself had always championed the free market. But he never believed in it. Actually, Mundy never really believed in anything. It was a career choice. Championing for the power of the powerful offered better career percentages than championing the poor. A good dog always barks loudest for its master, but a clever dog chooses a master with good feed.

Massaging ambience lifestylers’ intellectual vanity chafed Mundy the most… ‘tax reform for the good of the Nation… tax cuts rewarding personal initiative’. Throw away workers’ industrial relations, ‘making the Nation globally competitive’.

That’s what the magazine front cover image massaged – the young professional ambience lifestyler couple. The now emerging Aspirational Class. Their old man had worked in a factory.

Deep market research had shown ambience lifestyler women – feminine feminists by self-definition – were referring to their man as ‘mate’. ‘Husband’ and ‘partner’ were defunct. ‘Husband’ carried the baggage of dead patriarchy. And ‘partner’? Too much of a grubby business dealer. ‘Mate’ had been carried by the great Australian Story from animal breeding habits to be a narrative in the psyche of Nation. Usage by the feminine feminists had now softened ‘Mate’ from its deep anchoring in the male psyche. Masculine feminists also used ‘mate’. But secretly, when men were absent. Their ‘mates’ were fellow soul sisters. Usage was hard, tribal-political. Own the street language!

Mundy liked ‘He’s my mate,’ even though it was not his personal language. The follow-up media presentation would be his wife. Details had yet to be finalised but the image would be ‘serious’.

‘Our people have done a good job,’ the Patriarch interrupted. He was drawing Mundy’s attention to urgent matters.

‘We are concerned about media regulation… as we discussed with your Minister for Communications.’

Mundy’s attention moved from perception fantasies to political reality.
‘My government is deeply committed to market-place reform. Media policy is under development.’

Mundy knew what the Patriarch wanted: more media. The Patriarch knew that Mundy knew. And everybody knew the Patriarch would get his ‘wants’. For Mundy, the trick was getting what he wanted.

Mundy’s instincts registered on the ‘discussed with your Minister’. He was surprised that discussion was at this highest level. Mundy was also perplexed that ‘the Old Bastard’ wanted more media. What media didn’t he already own? The suburban weeklies, with their ‘find-a-friend’ pages? Maybe there was money in ‘find-a-friend’? Mundy gave the matter no further thought… ‘the Old Bastard must know his business’.

Mundy concluded, ‘It’s time’. He must put his demand on the table. He breathed Prime Ministerial posture and was about to put his ‘ask’. Of course, the Patriarch already knew: Mundy wanted more masculinity. Confidential party research had shown that in conservative constituencies – men and women of Australia with grown-up family, hard political country – Mundy’s Prime Ministerial masculinity was being questioned. Men felt pity. Women felt contempt.

The Patriarch, in chairman of the board fashion, spoke first. He offered Mundy a banana. This was deflection. Mundy’s political instincts went into deep alert. He smelt a rat.

‘The bananas,’ the Patriarch continued, ‘are fresh in this morning.’ Picked from his deep-north tropical plantation. ‘By dinner our bananas will be in fruit bowls in Tokyo, Berlin and New York.’ Mundy’s psyche partially eased; his government had championed globalisation. Nevertheless, he remained suspicious.

The Patriarch then turned to Jonathan. It was a call. Maybe to theatre. Maybe to something else. ‘Offer the Prime Minister a banana.’ Mundy went on full alert!

Jonathan moved, if not sleazed, to centre stage. His manic grin intensified, his eyes were wild, he became the Snake… ‘Yes Sir, I will immediately.’

He ripped, with theatrical, exaggerated force, a banana from the bunch. Invading body space and towering over Mundy, Jonathan then held the ripped banana almost to his face. The Snake had denuded Mundy of his Prime Ministerial clothing. Primal violent theatre was about to continue.

He peeled the banana to half its length, holding the still-dressed bottom portion in his hand. With swift action, Jonathan pulled a short, razor-sharp, hooked knife – a throat cutter – slicing the half-naked banana. The dismembered portion fell onto the coffee table, rolling over the magazine, and onto the floor. Banana slime was left on the smiling face of the political asset. Jonathan pushed the castrated banana into Mundy’s face…

‘Half a banana a day, keeps political troubles away.’

Images of the half-undressed banana, its slicing, and the castrated stump, in slow motion, replayed in Mundy’s psyche. He was back in terror. Momentarily his dream images reappeared. Starring into the dead man’s Gough-like face… eyes, mouth, then neck, chest, stomach… then a vagueness, a blackness… then the castrated stump banana…

‘Stop that nonsense,’ the Patriarch commanded in mock authoritative tone, ‘and apologise to the Prime Minister.’

‘Yes, Sir, I will immediately.’ Jonathan retreated from centre stage. The wild look in his eyes dissipated, the energy spent; the dirty deed was done. The man was psychically dead!

The Patriarch’s voice returned Mundy to physical reality. His intellect struggled to regroup and prepare a defence. His psyche was gone, awaiting only the next slaughter.

‘Ah, the news,’ spoke the Patriarch, in chairman of the board tone, ‘Jonathan, put on the news.’

‘Yes Sir, I will immediately.’ Flicking a remote control switch, Jonathan put on the news, the images appearing on a big screen behind his back. Jonathan did not need to see the news.

The three-man theatre piece changed energy level. The manic energy of first strike dissipated; a slow methodical killing was about to follow…

...

Full-face image of News Reader appears on big screen. Male, mature, authoritative; an image men desired, and women found exciting. Married women about to commit fantasy fornication on kitchen table in front of family. Christian moral ethics yet to conquer this primal female space.

News Reader face: deep market-researched, human face of soft patriarchy. Must excite but not intimidate female viewer. Must not invoke fastidious feminists critique. Cardinal rule of media perception construction: fastidious feminist critique is sleeping dog that must be allowed to sleep. Men do not understand it, women mistrust it, but can be problematic. Best appeased.

Rule of pulpit: we are manipulators of Story. We are not creators of Story.

No Aussie bloke image and no wog male image. Aussie bloke and wog male are in feminist sin bin. Aussie bloke: insensitive, boyish, does not understand women; after two hundred years nobody knows his heart’s deepest yearning, except another Aussie Bloke. The wog male? A lost space. Feminists blame the wog woman: over-mothering.

Station introduction, an easy-viewing welcome to the news. Viewers are now under News Reader’s voice control. First story: a dog up a tree. Human interest, light hearted. News Reader’s voice is humorous but still serious, not frivolous. An easing, a massaging, but not escape, from the day’s viewer personal troubles. Subtextual message: there is love in the world! Police, fire-people, ambulance-people, people from local community – all working together. The last image of the story is the rescued dog, safe in the arms of a boy. A happy ending, everybody happy – the world is safe!

Full face of News Reader reappears; full face but not full-frontal. News Reader is looking down at monitor. Monitor and camera are invisible, but they exist. News Reader is smiling, he too followed the dog-up-a-tree story. Like us. He is with us, one of us, on our side, of the people.
Happy-ending happiness continues in a warm News Reader smile. His face is back to full frontal, in eye-contact connection with the viewer. He is happy, we are happy. Humanity is beautiful! The image moves to a half-body view, and eye-contact connection is broken; serious business is about to be done.

The image focus shifts to the desk corner, a white paper. News Reader moves the white paper to desk centre – the scripted ‘unexpected event’. Full face image is resumed, eye contact reconnected. News Reader is serious; the viewer must be attentive.

‘We have a new development.’

His voicetone becomes deepest masculine. The subtextual message: we are out of script control, there could be crisis, there could be chaos. The Nation could be in crisis, but trust me, I am in control.

‘A story is breaking, we will be crossing to the capital.’

An off-side view of News Reader looking down at his monitor. Monitor and camera are invisible. The viewer is looking at News Reader, but in image space the viewer is looking into the monitor, looking over News Reader’s shoulder. After him, following him. We are in his care. If News Reader fucks up we are all fucked.

‘Max, can you hear me?’ – speaking unscripted script. His voicetone is sharp, concise; testing technology. The subtextual message: ultimately, in crisis, technology cannot be trusted. There is only us… human resources, loyalty, and quality of leadership.

News Reader faces back to full frontal, his technological connection to Max made. He reconnects viewer eye contact.

‘We are crossing to Max Mack, chief political correspondent, live from the Parliament House Press Room.’

A half-body view of Max Mack appears with people moving in the background, an image of disorder, events moving out of control. The Nation is in political crisis. Max Mack – a rough ugly face, not competing with the mature, masculine handsomeness of News Reader. Max Mack was Maxannoplous Mackannoplous. Greek boy made media good. Parents owned a milk bar. Now Max Mack.

‘What’s happening, Max?’

‘We don’t know, Kerry.’

The chief political correspondent does not know what’s going on, Kerry does not know what’s going on. We are potentially fucked.

‘Ten minutes ago, Kerry, the Treasurer, Finance and Communications Ministers called a joint press conference. They’re setting up behind me. We’ll soon be crossing live…’

Mundy became absorbed by the news, but as a perplexed spectator to the unfolding political event. Mundy felt impotent; he could manage nothing. Personal staff knew of his appointment this evening. He had given specific instructions not to bother him unless it was a matter of extreme urgency. But if developments were of such importance to require a press conference then they would be of sufficient urgency to have contacted him. Unless, of course, somebody were doing a Judas…
The three ministers were the most trusted and senior of his Cabinet. Along with his loyal deputy, they were his ‘Gang of Four’, his power base. Back in the old days, when the Party was in Opposition, Mundy and the Gang of Four engineered the party-room coup which propelled the five men into leadership.

Mundy, in his imagination, had already written the several chapters of his future memoirs on the coup. It would be a classic of modern political party-room manoeuvring… ‘catch ’em with their pants down!’, as they used to say back in the political old days, before the gay rights movement. Well, Mundy and his Gang of Four had certainly caught the old guard with their pants down. And pushed them into their own shit. Mundy had always liked the metaphors, ‘catch ’em with their pants down’, and ‘push ’em into their own shit’. He would use these in his memoirs. Mundy liked the occasional use of masculine language in political speak. That’s what Mundy liked most about politics: the masculinity. And that’s what his opponents always underestimated – his masculinity! They thought him deficient. But to their peril.

Mundy’s greatest personal pleasure was that moment when his vanquished political opponent would realise the pressure-point of their defeat. They had underestimated Mundy’s political ‘balls’. Mundy’s masculinity was cerebral, just like his politics. He had cemented the upper echelon of party power around his leadership. With political battles the current battle is always won in the last war.

Treasury, Finance and the deputy were of Mundy’s generation, but they were workhorses. Senior ministry was their political career endpoint, they aspired no further. Solid parliamentary careers, men of the Party and healthy superannuation into retirement. With, naturally, the occasional lucrative government consultancy in post-political life. Consultancy work is not just feathering parliamentary pensioner nests, as viewed by the mindless cynical electorate. Consultancy is bipartisan. Old political warriors cannot be allowed to meditate too deeply on psyche wounds incurred in the field of political battle, or to meditate on what they have become.

Mundy pondered Jim Cairns, who was finishing when Mundy was beginning. Poor Jim! Spent years in post-political life running nude in the bush, seeking lost innocence. Rather tragic, really. And Malcom Fraser? Mundy pondered Malcom. Went soft in the head. Went socialist! Even after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Unlike the workhorses, the Minister for Communications was of the leadership class. But he was a generation away. Mundy was safe. Potential threats were on the outside. Sure, they would ‘piss in’ from time to time, but they were without a power base, babes who went leaking to the media. No strategic planning, no political science, no long-term thinking. Anal politics. Nobody took them seriously. They were parliamentary corridor gossips who thought they walked the corridors of power. Rather pathetic.

That’s where Max Mack got his political information, silly Greek wog-boy. Mundy treated him like a fool. Used him, of course; leaked him mis-information to wrong-step political opponents. Clever wogs may understand politics but they don’t know politics. Australian politics is a tribal Anglo-Celtic duality. Wogs miss out. Still, a good living can be had making expressos…

‘We are crossing to the press conference,’ spoke Max Mack. There was a genuine unscripted excitement and urgency in his voice, even losing a few decibels of professional media voice. He revealed a migrant English that had been learnt at school as a second language – the migrant’s lack of language owernship.

The voice drew Mundy’s attention back to the big screen. A half-body view of the three men appeared, sitting behind a desk cluttered with microphones. The loyal deputy was absent. Mundy went into strategic alert. With the ‘chook-killer’ act, protocol requires the ‘loyal deputy’ to be absent, for the good of Party loyalty.

The Minister for Communications was sitting in the middle, flanked by the ‘loyal’ workhorses. Mundy went into crisis. First dagger into the chest. Mundy had to force himself to continue breathing.

Mundy looked up at Jonathan, who was staring into his face. A child-like pleading for life-support came from Mundy’s psyche. Jonathan’s manic grin twitched with a trace of pleasure, watching a drowning man sink. The Patriarch solidified into silent witness.

‘Men and women of Australia,’ spoke the Minister for Communications, in Gough-like Prime Ministerial tones.

Second dagger into the back! The psyche was bleeding.

‘Tomorrow, at the Party meeting, I will be challenging for leadership of the Party, the government, and for leadership of the Nation.’

A flow of daggers… back, chest, stomach and groin… psychic blood was spilling onto the floor.

‘Ladies and gentlemen of the media are there any questions?’

Laurie Ocktree, veteran political correspondent, had worked on every network, asked the first question. He always did. Everybody went silent. He was a master.

‘Minister, do you have the numbers?’

‘Well, as you well know Laurie, nothing is certain in political life… not even death… but I am quietly confident. Numbers – the mathematics of politics, as we like to say in Melbourne – mathematics was my very best subject!’

The Minister for Communications spoke with a smile. The smile was in his eyes. It was cerebral. He was master of events.

Last dagger into the heart. A political life snuffed. The big screen went blank. Jonathan flicked, as the Patriarch assumed control.

‘Was mathematics your very best subject, Jonathan?’

‘No Sir, I was good with my hands, Sir!’

‘Open the door, the Prime Minister may want to be leaving.’

Jonathan was at the door in a few leaps, flinging it open. Mundy got up. He looked into the Patriarch’s face, searching for something. But there was no eye contact.

The Patriarch was looking out the large window. He could see over Sydney Harbour. He was not a man of poetry, yet he always felt moved by the power of the landscape. He could surrender to it and yet felt safe. Of course, he had never shared this sentiment with any other person. Darkness was falling over Sydney. He could see the lights. Ordinary people were about to have family dinner after a day of honest labour. They had warm homes and food on the table; there were no tanks on the streets.

The Patriarch turned, catching the back of Mundy, as he was exiting.
‘That was the seventh of my Prime Ministers,’ he thought. This pleased him. He had outdone his father, who had only six.

The smoking room door closed firmly behind Mundy. He stood, lost, waiting to be directed. He was without an audience. The protocol staff person led him back along the family dynasty corridor. Nobody was watching.

Mundy’s imagination left Sydney North Shore. He was again a boy. He was standing outside his parents bedroom, it was dark, the door had closed behind him. He was angry. His father’s words, to return to bed, echoed in his mind. The words could not find a path to escape, they kept echoing. The dark corridor, along which he was to walk back to his bed, frightened him. His bed frightened him. He was too alone.

Mundy stood in the driveway. His driver, holding open the back door of the Prime Ministerial car, was waiting for him to step inside. Mundy stared motionless at the car door. He felt repulsed by it. He felt himself to be at the beginning of a long journey, but without the life-energy to undertake it. A life-energy squandered. Something had broken…

This story is taken from Total Cardboard issue 7, and remains under copyright. For more information see www.totalcardboard.com