Europe is a frozen sea where I have walked on water. Clumps of folk, like barnacles, disturb my landscape, like graffiti but I hardly see them. This is my terra nullius. The river belly is invisible beneath me and it strikes me that from up on deck, the world is flat. A ship’s a hemisphere. The mast, a stolen tree, an infinitely tall flagpole and cross combines the heresies of government and god. Woollen to the eyeballs now I skate like an Australian writing in my head postcards: The sky is white. The trees are white. From here the world is white. God must be white. Each a Southern hemisphere the first sweatshops were ships overcrowded with workers gold and spice and sweet timbers. Overseers commissioned by their God to walk on water with their three sticks gun and flag and cross privatised entire nations like cheeses of the world shown on a board. Carving the frozen water with my blades I make a map. The globe stretches in front of me bare of any footprint as far as the eye can see. My breath evaporates as guilt evaporates, like exhaust. A flag like any flag, indicating piracy. I have come alone here from the far Antipodes teaching myself how to skate and with the sheep’s back riding on me. I will strike entitlement to freedom’s ingenuity. Like a scarf I lose my fear without knowing I’ve lost it. Terra nullius must be Strine, I think, for I fear nothing. Cathoel Jorss
