How I learned to stop worrying.
Daniel Grey

We were weeks from freedom when the war came home. It had simmered in the background for years and everyone was happily going about their lives.
Graduation was supposed to be the end of one world (“And the beginning of another. As one door closes…” the speeches wouldn’t end). But this was more literal than we’d expected. Apparently everyone in the world with a gun and an agenda deemed that month the most appropriate to try them both on for size. They reared their ugly heads, stole our thunder and rained fire on our parade.

I wish I’d known you in October.

I’ll bet you have nightmares about trying to get home. I’ll bet they always begin or end in busway stations, airports or trains. You’ve got to get to your family, to bring them news or save them from some intricate plot device. And every time you get lost or waylaid or you lose control of what you’re driving. It’s more frightening than it sounds, I know. I have them too.

I think we lived one of our nightmares on October 15.

I was on a train. Heading inbound as the sun was setting, reading graffiti and thinking about a girl. No-one in particular; just – you know – the perfect proverbial, like every guy does. I wouldn’t meet you for a good ten minutes yet.
The carriage emptied itself around me. Tired people shook their heads, thought bleak thoughts and stepped off. I couldn’t watch them. I looked out the window. And I saw it.

It shot up above the buildings, gleaming bronze in the last sunlight, breaking clouds and leaving a trail of smoke. Someone’s escaping, I thought. I had to see them go. I had to keep it in sight. I leapt from my seat and ran, eyes out the windows. I stumbled towards the back of the train. Two plates of Translink glass, misty, weathered and old, distorted my view. Curly signatures were carved in them. Marker pen messages too, none of them profound.

The sun took one more look over the planet’s shoulder and set. The rocket faded into space. Below it, the train rattled away with me. I looked around and realised I was alone in it. Nobody wanted to go to central, as if they knew what was on its way. Suddenly it didn’t feel safe on the train. It shook like it was out of control. I had to get out.

About that time I’ll bet you were waiting for a bus below the mall. So were a thousand other people, queuing in the subterranean maze of city-bus central. It had been your average weekday: about 6 hours too long, unsatisfying, full of wrong turns and bad timing. You were probably surprised you’d even made it to the station. But you waited, one crowded bus ride from home.
There had been barely anybody on the ground floor. As if they knew. No-one was arriving. They all wanted to get home, all anxious, angry, afraid or exhausted. It was like the entire terminal was depressed. A bus was waiting, but no-one knew if it was the right one, so no-one got on. The driver stared out at you, his face like all the others, only fat.

It was then, I think, that you realised life is like this for everyone. It's not just people like you and me. It's the whole world. Because this is what the world is like.
“So what’s the point?” I’ll bet you asked yourself.
And then you realised what you’d said. And then you realised you should probably get some air. You had to get out.
You left a wake of startled people. They shook themselves and settled like dust.
Out on the square, at the very city centre, you looked to the sky. And you saw the rocket leave us too. Didn’t you?
Uncomprehending, looking up in shock, your mind wandered onto things like the colours of the sunset, how birds fly and why there were no people in the city. They’d gone home instinctively, like rats from a sinking ship. You found an empty newsagent, read the headlines, looked at the propaganda posters pasted over No War signs. You thought about modern warfare.
You ran.

Things were a little blurry after that, for both of us. The next thing I remember is being one of two people staring at the side of a building where silver spray-paint said “We are fading into space.”
We looked at each other, on what should have been a busy street which should have gone quiet when our eyes met and locked. But we were alone.

And then a nuclear weapon completely failed to explode above the city.

Everybody always forgets Brisbane. Sydney got bombed. Adelaide got bombed. But Brisbane, the middle child of Australia, is left to pick up the pieces. There’s one in every family: Cork, Wuzhong, Wyoming. We all just became capitals.
I don’t know what’s going to happen now. I don’t know who was in the rocket, but I know why they left. They were frightened. So were we.

As for the nightmares, I don’t know what they mean. We’ll probably just be good parents or something. I think our family just got very big.