The Road

We are the balkginy and we forget our dead and I don’t know why. We will see our loved ones slain and then leave, never to look back and never venture near the site of their departure.

It was like that with my mother. She was slain by the ngarrwun that live around us. Hunted and killed and dragged off into the bush. I could hear her cries as they ate her and I heard the terrible silence afterward. My father stared into the grass for only a moment before he bundled me up and bounded away. We never went back and later when I asked my father ignored me. I nagged about mother’s whereabouts and finally he said.

“Gone, and speak no more of her. She is dead. She must never be in your thoughts again.”

And I forgot her.

But now I think of her and all the others that have died.  All those who we simply walked away from. Because, now I stare at my mate, his body is twisted, broken and lying in the dust by The Patch, a dead stretch of red earth gouged through the landscape by the Great Predator. A fearsome, screaming beast that stalks The Patch. His dark blood soaks into the soil and draws the attention of the scavengers.

I reach down and touch his face. He is cold and his cheek is soft, the bone underneath is shattered yet his face seems untouched. He is so beautiful. If I were to just look at his face it appears as if he is sleeping, it’s the twisted wreck of his body that reminds me that has fallen victim to the Great Predator.

The wak wak come, they always come first. Their hard cries signal that another has fallen. Our dead are but carrion to them. They land around his body, wary of me at first but that will change. They are large jurlak and in numbers they could harm me, even kill me. I growl at them to stay away but that they laugh and hop closer. One dares to touch my beloved and I scream at him and lunge forward. He flaps away, laughing and the others join him. They converge and there is little I can do. They peck at my paws as I try to pull them off, one scratches my face. I can feel the hot blood course down my cheek.

I scream at them and stamp the dust but they ignore me. I am forced to watch as the wak wak eat my mate, my love.

One wak wak with luminous black feathers hops out from the throng and cocks his head at me.

“Why do you watch? Is this pleasing to you?” He asks.

“You are consuming my mate.” I answer sadly. I want to look away from the fearsome spectacle but I cannot.

“The Great Predator has taken what you loved away and left only a shell that we must consume if we are to survive. You should look away and take your leave of us. Forget that you were here, that he was here. Leave and spare yourself this torment.”

“What do you care!” I spit at him.

“Wak wak eat the dead. I make no excuses for my brethren. It is what we do. But that does not mean we do not love, nor grieve for those who have fallen. Many of my brothers litter the Red Snake, what you call The Patch. The Great Predator kills what he can reach regardless of what it is. Even its own kind.”

“Do you eat your own?”

“What do you I think I am?” The wak wak says calmly and turns away.

I stay for the rising of the sun and watch. Twice I hear the scream of the Great Predator and dash off into the grass. The wak wak scatter as it approaches but quickly land again and continue to feast.

 I try to weep for my loss yet I find that I can’t. Am I so heartless that I cannot even shed a tear for my beloved who lies dead before me or am I just so ingrained with our own selfish nature that I am already forgetting my dearest departed. Had we not last shared a passionate embrace only yesterday, I can still feel the gentle touch of his cheek against mine, the scent of him as it filled my nostrils. His touch.

The diwana comes. He could kill me easily by himself and as he lands he cast his eye over me, his cruel claws dig into the dust.

“This is no place for you little balkginy. Go from here. Forget this place and this creature.”

I tremble with fear before his terrible presence. He is my size with enormous wings and a savagely hooked beak that could tear the flesh from my bones. I bow before him., but I cannot find my voice.

“Your mate?” He enquires with a jerk of his dark head.

“Yes, Great One.” I look past him to the body in the dust. The wak wak have retreated a respectable distance from the diwana and they now wait for him.

“Once I watched over the body of my life, my love.” His voice is filled with sorrow and he stares off into the trees. “I watched her fallen form as she faded from a great beauty to a mere shade. Her feathers shed and scattered by the passing of the Great Predator. She was my only love. There will never be another. Diwana are not like that. We do not seek new mates”

“I love him. How can I forget him?” I ask, my fear gone now, only a desperate need for an answer remains. Why? Why did my father just abandon my mother? Why did I forget her? Does this creature know the answers to my own pain? He has felt this grief that I feel; surely he must know why the balkginy forget their dead.

“You will forget him in time. It is what you do. Look at this body, this form on the ground.” He guides me to my lover’s side. “What do you see here? Your love? your life? your mate? No.” He says gently. “You see the shell of what he was.” He places a foot on his chest and digs his claws in. “The part of him that loved you is gone. He is now the trees, the grass. He continues in a form that you do not understand. For us,” he waves his wing at the silent wak wak, “he is meat. He will sustain us. For you, he is memory and that will sustain you. The balkginy do not forget their dead. They just do not want to remember them as being dead.”

The diwana pushes me away from him. He dismisses me with a wave of his wing and then he digs his beak into my mates flesh. I turn away. I can see no more of the sacrilege of his body. I should not see anymore. He is right. Why would I want to remember the torn carcass of a victim of the Great Predator when I can remember the face of my own beloved balkginy.

There is a noise in the grass and I turn to see my father staring at me. I can see the understanding in his eyes, the loss; he has never forgotten my mother, his mate. How could he? Was I the heartless one for not seeing his pain? Why would he want to look at the torn body of the creature he loved, with whom he raised a daughter with? I go to him and embrace him. He holds me tightly and I can feel his tears on my cheek as I know he can feel mine.

We are the balkginy and we do not forget our dead. We remember them all.

Taken from the Wagiman language.

Jurlak - birds

Ngarrwun - dingo

Wak wak - crow 

Diwana - eagle

Balkginy – wallaby

Made up

Great Predator - Car