Hiking is just walking except you get to eat m&ms and little nuts while doing so. The other day I hiked around Elizabeth Quay.
Contrary to popular belief I don’t hate the place so much, but, often when I am there I like to imagine a predictable future where resigned to his fate, Colin Barnett crouches in a secret bunker beneath the Quay. Over the droning sound of gunfire and speedboats above, Barnett takes one last look at his wife and two dachshunds, their bodies lying already stiff on the ground. After a brief struggle with the child-lock cap, he swallows the last of the cyanide and lays his head in her lap, staring into the fluorescent lights and watching them blur into ether.
Not long after are the bodies found by our city’s leading Perthonalities, who, as per request, scatter the ashes upon the shores of the BHP Billiton Water Park. Unaware of the processions, local children run screaming shirtless through the bubbling remains, simply enjoying just another hot January day.
Words by Rainy Colbert. Art by Ben Yaxley.
Originally published in Pelican Magazine Issue one 2017.