Canaries

I know exactly where I am.

I am standing in the front yard of a house I have not seen in almost three years. There's fake grass underneath my steel boots. Behind me is a large hedge with the words "FREE ASSANGE" spray-painted in purple onto the leaves. Every few weeks, as the letters begin to diverge, someone comes along and re-sprays it.

In the garage, out the back, the walls are covered in posters of Playboy girls—on motorbikes, on roller skates, draped over the hoods of cars like linen. Always ready to zoom off somewhere.

Inside the house V—, who is only sixty-five but looks older, shuttles her walker between a plush leather chair in the loungeroom and an unplush plastic and linoleum chair at the kitchen table. Beside the table, the TV is tuned to SBS WorldWatch. The TV is never turned off, only muted outside the hour (9:30am - 10:30am) when they broadcast the news in Greek.

In the garage are a cage hung with wire from a rafter containing two white canaries and three yellow canaries and V—'s younger son, D—. I never see D— smoke, but the glass ashtray beside him on the wrought iron table is always full of butts. Beside the ashtray: a stereo, a packet of birdseed, an empty panettone box, and 1-3 cassette tapes plucked from cardboard boxes of AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, The Angels, and Handel.

D— is over forty, but he looks younger, with long, curly black hair down past his shoulders. I don't remember how I learnt it, but I know that when he was fourteen, D—'s father beat him so badly he went deaf in his right ear. Shortly after, he dropped out of school.

In the garage, D— doesn't look at the posters. He just watches the canaries.