MOON STRUCK

Louis Herbier

There were steel buildings plunging upwards out of the sea. There were protective spirits clustering around him. In the great Dreaming of the Outback, there was the largest moon since 1948, that is, in his lifetime.

It was as if all the tension and outrage which had propelled him in the  preceding months came swelling over him like frothy surf; and he physically collapsed.

The long term stress had taken its physical toll, as had the crushing levels of surveillance and harassment.

He could feel sometimes, as the night swept across the empty opal mines, as if the healing might be about to begin.

In dreams great walls appeared out of desert sands.

In the wider narrative, in a world which needed exposing, the government gifted hundreds of millions of dollars to clandestine agencies able to conduct prolonged campaigns against any target they wished.

It was extra-judicial, had no checks and balances, and the weaponry thus amassed, secrecy, surveillance technology, hundreds of overpaid staff, legislation which made them almost impossible to prosecute, could easily be misused by any senior bureaucrat or politician with a vendetta.

People were always prepared to believe the worst, particularly those who failed to conform to the latest group think; the prevailing mob mentalities of the 21st Century.

Then the natural bureaucratic tendency to expend vast amounts of time and effort covering up mistakes took hold.

That, he was convinced, was what had happened to him.

In the background the sonorous tones of Radio National announcers continued to "unpack meaning", "explore diversity" and "empathise with difference".

Meanwhile the future of intelligence was breaking through into the present; his own self-destructive tendencies, his ability to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory, to act the loser when actually the winner, all of it was being rewritten; long overdue. Last Will and Testament. The Future was being Foretold. And the future was a brilliant one.


THE BIGGER STORY:






While Hongkongers should be used to looking up to the night sky and not seeing a blanket of stars, our clear weather does mean that we're in for a very rare treat this very evening. You might not notice it immediately, but the sky tonight will be lit by a 'supermoon' – in other words, the moon will be 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than it has been at any time since 1948. You won't want to miss it, either, because the next time the moon will be this big will be in 2034.

Intense air strikes have hit several rebel-held areas in Aleppo for the first time in more than two weeks, signalling the start of a major government offensive in Syria's northern city.

The ferocious bombardment of eastern Aleppo on Tuesday came as Russian armed forces also announced the launch of a large-scale operation against opposition targets in Syria.

FEATURED BOOK: