Best Australian Yarn: Endlings by Samuel Herriman

I fear growing numb to life. I fear drifting through each day as if the minor events that fill the hours are inconsequential. Fear and sadness fill the cracks between joy and bliss. It helps us mend the fractures. Mum taught me that.

Mum and I are both only children. She was a botanist who mostly worked in the field, so we travelled around a lot. Me, her, and my Red Setter Benji. We’d leave for months at a time to go to some island no-one’s ever heard of only to come back to a completely different city. Entire summers were spent on the muddy bank of a stagnant river or the dunes of a porcelain beach. Forgotten towns trapped in time were our eco-system. Those places were home to that mixture of rusted on locals and opportunistic retirees, both equally sceptical of outsiders.

Mum would always manage to endear herself, though. She’d make a beeline for the grimy front bar in the grand old buildings completely out of place between the ramshackle huts and modern holiday retreats. Mum would sink pint after pint, throw darts, talk shit and soon enough she’d be part of the furniture. Only to disappear without notice. She preferred it that way.