The administrative assistant at Auschwitz was middle-class in his responsibilities. Always meticulously dressed, staff meticulously dressed, behaviour between himself and staff always proper and correct. He responsibly corrected unprofessional staff behaviour. Duty, not egoism would be his motivation. The administrative assistant at Auschwitz was mindful of his responsibilities, and was too responsible to ask outside of that. The administrative assistant is not departed or dead. He lives, and every morning he catches the tram at Camberwell junction. He is the perfect model of the corporate person. There is a space, a brief space, a moment in his weekly life when he glimpses through the foggy window. For a little while he ponders beyond his area of responsibility.
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My childhood was stolen by the holocaust of the schoolyard concentration camp. I never had a proper childhood, nor a proper adolescence. That was stolen by the Great Religious War of the 1960s. During childhood I did find a place of refuge from the psychological slaughterhouse of primary school, family poverty, cultural brokenness, forced assimilation policies of the Menzies government and the Cold War. I found the rubbish tip. I would walk for hours around the tip, lost amongst its ruins. The tip was my childhood solitude, my salvation. There, I would be left alone _ just a dirty, dago kid down the tip. I did not play at the tip; play was never part of my childhood. I was told many years later by a woman of Koori ancestry that the tip was a sacred place in the Australian landscape, a place where the troubled would be left in solitude. A neutral place, a place of healing. The tip dweller asks for nothing and by right nothing can be asked of him. Koori communities lived beside the tip. Not because of poverty, nor because they were outcasts, but because the tip was a physical expression of their poetry. An expression of their suffering. A work of living art. She told me that in finding my way to the tip, I had found my connection to the authentic Australian story. This woman had profound knowledge of the wounds in the Australian psyche. Sometimes I stand on the Hoddle Street Bridge overlooking the freeway. I sense the vast space below me, as if overlooking a deep canyon, and I ponder the metallic, mad herd. Where is it going? Maybe nowhere. Why do I exist? Maybe for no reason. My life is a futility, but I am not concerned: anyone who does not realise life is a failure has not lived. I do not need to plunge off the bridge to put God to the test; I already know He would not catch me. I know God_s abandonment. God has crucified more people than the Romans ever did in all their butchery. Yet the huge space does invoke in me a sense of beckoning. Perhaps I seek possession, seek power in wishing to fly, demanding to be more than human. Perhaps that is why God will not catch me. I should accept being human. Maybe it is fear. Not fear of death, but fear of uncertainty, fear of not being in control. My humanity being so fragile and so finite is for me disempowering. My ego is too gross a fantasy to fit into a space so humble. But, should I plunge it would be my decision. I would be in control, uncertainty would end, I would control death. Standing on the bridge I do not know what will happen. Fear prevents my thoughts from becoming concrete, and I am immersed in mystery. I am forced to live life in faith. But maybe I have allowed dogma to restrict my imagination. Perhaps my emotional crisis is but a manifestation of deeper crisis, an excuse for refusing to confront my homelessness. I refuse to see the other room where I could be. Refusing to knock, fearing that the door will open. I refuse to let the brokenness in my soul unite me with all in brokenness. Sin for me is individual. But it is also my prison, and a conspiracy against me that is maintained by silence, silence without stillness. But I think I have come to a moment: I can choose to listen with the silence of stillness to those who have begun speaking, or choose to listen with the silence of conspiracy. For voices have begun speaking _ individuals who have experienced most deeply our collective brokenness. They are the sojourners of the night. Their night is now dawning, if not for them then maybe for those who listen. Journeys of the night always end with the breaking of a new day. The drop kick exists no more. It was not a long-distance kick, but precision and elegance were its characteristics, and it was a difficult kick. It was executed correctly only by the very skilled. Seeing Syd Jackson, the champion Koori footballer, moving at great speed across the forward zone and drop kicking a goal was a moment of magic. Working magic in the forward line is a measure of football greatness, achieved only by those who are touched by the gods. In the modern functional era of the great game, the drop kick has become extinct. Modern coaches have banned it for being too high-risk. Mistakes must be minimised: the fundamental of the modern game is control. Mistakes bring a moment of unpredictability, of openness _ the game begins anew with every mistake. Potential then exists for a new pattern and the force of mystery imposes itself. Since the force of mystery cannot be planned for, coaches must then rely on their more creative players to reconstruct a new play. But coaches have difficulty with creative players, who are undisciplined. I have stopped planning my funeral. I now realise I don_t need to. I won_t be there. ... My childhood was stolen by the holocaust of the schoolyard concentration camp. I never had a proper childhood, nor a proper adolescence. That was stolen by the Great Religious War of the 1960s. During childhood I did find a place of refuge from the psychological slaughterhouse of primary school, family poverty, cultural brokenness, forced assimilation policies of the Menzies government and the Cold War. I found the rubbish tip. I would walk for hours around the tip, lost amongst its ruins. The tip was my childhood solitude, my salvation. There, I would be left alone _ just a dirty, dago kid down the tip. I did not play at the tip; play was never part of my childhood. I was told many years later by a woman of Koori ancestry that the tip was a sacred place in the Australian landscape, a place where the troubled would be left in solitude. A neutral place, a place of healing. The tip dweller asks for nothing and by right nothing can be asked of him. Koori communities lived beside the tip. Not because of poverty, nor because they were outcasts, but because the tip was a physical expression of their poetry. An expression of their suffering. A work of living art. She told me that in finding my way to the tip, I had found my connection to the authentic Australian story. This woman had profound knowledge of the wounds in the Australian psyche. Sometimes I stand on the Hoddle Street Bridge overlooking the freeway. I sense the vast space below me, as if overlooking a deep canyon, and I ponder the metallic, mad herd. Where is it going? Maybe nowhere. Why do I exist? Maybe for no reason. My life is a futility, but I am not concerned: anyone who does not realise life is a failure has not lived. I do not need to plunge off the bridge to put God to the test; I already know He would not catch me. I know God_s abandonment. God has crucified more people than the Romans ever did in all their butchery. Yet the huge space does invoke in me a sense of beckoning. Perhaps I seek possession, seek power in wishing to fly, demanding to be more than human. Perhaps that is why God will not catch me. I should accept being human. From Fosco Antonio, My Reality