Cosmic spirits, other worlds and the ghosts of your ancestors. Bloody hell. Not an easy thing to get your head around when you're relaxing in the afternoon heat, staring into the outback and watching this glorious rain belt down into the earth. Part of me would like to forget all that's happened. Not forever, you know, I mean just put it on the back burner until I can cope. Course, they're not gonna let me do that, are they?

"Are you Jack Wororan?" says one of the four ol' fellas facing me, the one with the walking stick. They each look a thousand years old, standing there with the rain dripping off their wide brimmed hats, over their wizened, painted faces.

"That I am," says I. The leader looks me up and down, giving a quick, suspicious glance at the roll-up in my hand, and then taking in my knackered leg propped up on the porch fence. One of the cheeky ol' buggers actually shakes his head.

"Some ol' timers have been saying I'm a bit of a hero," I says. "That'll be you, then, will it?"

One of the ol' ones coughs a bit, then splutters, "You've a fair lip for a boy who's seen eternity and nearly didn't make it back." He looks at my leg, like he can see it throb.

Can't help but smile. I wave them in. "Come on in boys, you'll drown out there," I says. They come creaking onto the decking and shake off, muttering.

"Time was I would have laughed at youse," I says. "But I've grown up a bit, now. I could listen to youse, now. Learn." They just stare at me. They didn't expect that. "But I suppose youse want to listen to me now, am I right?" I says.

"We want you to tell us," says the oldest. He's wrinkled and lined like an old turtle, but his eyes pin me in my chair like a wombat caught in headlights. "In your own words and in your own time. But tell us. It belongs to us all."

I suck a deep one from my ciggie. Just a normal cig, this one, but they don't know that, do they? "Funny," I says, "It started with one of these. Or something like it. And don't look at me like that, like my mother, all head-shaking and Oh, you're just reinforcing the stereotype of indigenous Australians as drug addicts, alcoholics and delinquents! Balls to that.

"Let's get something straight, shall we? I've had an education. I've been a teacher, in the townships. I like a beer every now and again, for sure. But not too many, and I never touch the strong stuff. And yes, I like a little weed every now and then. Sue me.

"And I know what you might be thinking. No, it wasn't hallucinations. It happened. But then, you know that. Otherwise you wouldn't be here, would you?"

Screw it. I don't need to justify myself after what I've done for them. For all of us. So I tell 'em.

I got a message from Mom. She wasn't well. Things weren't good on the ol' homestead. Could I get to see her? Bloody better than that. Minus one teaching job, thanks to an indiscreet fumble with the Head's wife, and dust off my mattress, Mom, I'm comin' home!

Course, I knew what would be wrong with Mom. The Wastes. People didn't grow old anymore, here in Koolyberrin. They died of the Wastes. The government don't give a monkey's anymore. Not now they've "proven" it's nothing they've dumped in the water, or the earth, or the air. Genetic, they reckon. Closed communities. Balls to that.

Coming back to Koolyberrin was like finding out that the last bloke didn't flush the bog. Most of the houses empty. The earth parched, just dust, really. The house was a wreck. The garden, if you can call it that, just about surviving. As I walked up, Mom was struggling with the pump, trying to fill a watering can. It's a new millennium everywhere else, but here in Koolyberrin, us Abos hand-pump our water.

It was like this. Mom was on her last legs. She knew it. I knew it. So, I was going to stop and see her through it. Times like that you wish you'd had a Dad. But I'll come to that, soon enough.

Mom was still a tight-arse, though. No way I was going to be firing up a joint in her house. The last time I tried that was when she kicked me out, all those years ago.

Funny, because that's where the story actually starts, ain't it? Times were really hard, back then. It looked like we'd lose the house. So Mom decided to sell the car at the auctions in Dumbleootha. Guess who got the job?

I don't know what Mom thought we'd get for the old heap, but I had to settle for five hundred dollars. I didn't start making retirement plans, you know?

Anyway, I stopped off for a beer on the way back. Walking, obviously. I was hot and knackered and once the beer was going down, I was gagging for a joint. Or something a little more potent. You see, I was younger back then. For me, at that time, certain substances were to be enjoyed, not abused.

The bloke in the back of the bar shook a little bag at me. "Try this," he said. "It's a bit special."

"What is it?" I had a close look at the contents of the bag. "Looks like dried up seeds, or something."

"Right you are. My cousin's mate works in some high tech lab, genetic modification and shit. He's responsible for these. Highly psychoactive, totally safe, totally natural."

"What do I do with 'em?" Hey, if it was different, I'd give it a go, y'know?

"Simple. Crush a couple of seeds, mix 'em with a bit o' baccy, smoke it like a normal cigarette. No more than a couple of seeds, though. This is heavy shit."

"How much?"

"Hundred smackers."

"Nice talkin' t' you. Bye."

"Don't be hasty now, mate. You'll never get another hit like this. Try it, you won't regret it."

Now, I should point out that I've a long track record of being stupid and selfish. I needed a good hit, and suddenly, there didn't seem to be a great deal of difference between five hundred and four hundred dollars. Mom, the auction was really poor. I was lucky to get anything.

Course, Mom went ape. "Four hundred dollars? Four hundred stinking dollars? Are you crazy? What are we going to do next week?" She cried, she shouted, she screamed. I felt pretty guilty, but it was done, right?

Like any screwed up teenager, I took off on my own. Into the garden actually. Mom loved that garden, and worked hard to keep it going through the years of steadily worsening droughts.

I found myself a comfy spot to stretch out in the sun, and rolled up a special. No more than a couple of seeds, the bloke had said. I used three.

It hit me on the second drag. Like someone had knocked my head off with a feather. Everything went five dimensional and I felt unconsciousness roaring at me like a steam train through fog.

And then I heard screaming. Mom had found me and she went on one, in a big way. The gist of it was, "No drugs in my house!" You get the picture. Anyway, I puked, I slept and then I left home. Mom had snatched my packet of wonderstuff and slung it away. We didn't even talk for over a year after that.

The ol' fellas are looking at me like I'm a rapist, now. Christ, I was young and stupid back then. Have a heart. And they're looking impatient. "Look," says I, "bear with me. There's a point to all this."

So, years later I got the call from Mom and I came back home. She needed a fair bit of looking after. She just sat a lot of the time, in front of the kerosene heater, despite the stifling Koolyberrin heat. She'd get up and about for an hour or so and then she'd be knackered. I had to look after the garden, which was feeding us. It needed a lot of water, so me and the pump became best mates. You see, there used to be springs in Koolyberrin, but they'd vanished. The hills to the North East were always a perfect rain trap, Koolyberrin always used to get more rain than surrounding areas, but now, the place had been drying out for years. Land that used to be fertile just turned to dust. Then the Wastes started. People moved away. Eventually, there were only a handful of die-hards like Mom left.

On the day when things started to happen, I'd put Mom to bed early and I wandered out into the garden. The air was so still that all the smells of the garden kind of mingled into a haze. Somewhere in that mix of aromas, there was an ingredient that I didn't quite recognise, but was familiar, nevertheless. I followed my nose and found a bush right at the back, or more rightly, a young, small tree. I'd no idea what kind of tree it was, but it must have been reasonably new, because it hadn't been here before I'd left home.

At the end of its branches there were these pods, and they were giving off the smell. I pulled one away and split it. Inside were seeds and I knew straight away they were the same as the seeds I'd mixed into a ciggie all those years ago.

I doubted Mom had developed a taste for recreational substances. When she snatched that packet of seeds off me that day, she must have just chucked them into a corner. And now, we had a drug factory. I could almost feel the dollar signs in my eyes.

But first, I thought, a little celebration. I crushed a couple of seeds, just a couple, and rolled a ciggie. Then I stretched out under the tree and relaxed.

The hit wasn't as violent as the last one. There was the feeling of having found new senses, I could smell colours and taste sounds. Then that feeling of onrushing unconsciousness came, and I gave up to it. When I woke up, I was literally somewhere else.

I felt like I'd slept for a lifetime. No, make that several lifetimes. My neck hurt where it rested against the tree. Sunlight beat against my eyelids. I struggled up, stiff and creaking, and forced my eyes open.

The sky was crystal blue, and the landscape was dry, rocky and dusty. Low rolling hills stretched away in all directions, leading to higher hills over to my right. I was resting against a tree, a huge tree, the only feature on the landscape. Some trip, right?

I wandered around a little, stretching my legs. Apart from the tree, which was a larger version of the one I had left behind, no plants or grasses grew. The place was barren.

Despite me knowing that this was totally a drug-induced dream, none of the dreamlike qualities of a trip were there. The whole thing felt real. Amazing what science can do, ain't it?

It seemed a shame not to explore, so I made my mind up to head for the higher ground, when I heard a voice.

"Well, well, Jack Wororan. Better late than never."

I spun around and saw proof that this was, in fact, a hallucination. A big talking bird stood there, blinking at me. "I'm in Sesame Street," I laughed.

The bird was a Cassowary, well over six feet tall. This type of bird can get nasty, and can rip a man in two with one swipe of its claws. But it didn't look a nasty type, if you know what I mean. It tilted its head on one side and seemed to be giving me a lopsided smile.

"You look surprised, Jack," said the bird. "Do you not recognise me?"

"Can't say as I do, mate." I didn't know whether to laugh or run, now, but at the back of my mind I was thinking of how much money I could make selling these potent little seeds.

"Then you're not the son of your father," said the Cassowary, sounding like it disapproved. "I thought your father might be the reason why you were here. No matter. We are used to suffering." The bird turned its back on me and strutted away, kicking up dust from the dry ground.

After a sec, I decided to go with it. We walked side by side, slowly up to the crest of a hill. Then the bird turned to me, its wattles shaking.

"You can go no further Jack. You are not ready, not for a long time, perhaps never. Go back and sleep under your tree. Go home." And then it strutted proudly away, over the hill.

Not ready? Well, that's like a red rag to a bull, ain't it? Maybe that's the reaction the bird wanted. Anyway, I waited a minute, then crept up over the hill. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

Over the hill, the land sloped gently down to a plain. People were working down there, in loincloths, faces painted in traditional Aborigine fashion. They were scraping about in the dusty earth, God knows what for.

As the Cassowary walked down towards them, they saw it and a cheer went up. I couldn't think why the bird would be such a reason for celebration.

There were some huts down there, a small village. In the middle of it was a larger hut, some important place, surrounded by wooden posts driven into the ground. Out of it came another man. He was big. Bloody hell, he was a giant! At least seven feet tall! And he was carrying weapons. He strode over to the Cassowary and grabbed it by the throat. The natives were singing and dancing but the bird didn't even put up a fight. The giant took a blade and rammed it deep into the bird's chest. Blood gushed and splattered everywhere. The Cassowary twitched a couple of times and then fell down.

I screamed, "No!" but my voice was drowned out by this sudden thunder that literally shook the earth. Out of nowhere, great black clouds rushed across the sky and suddenly rain pounded down, huge drops of rain the size of my fist, hammering into the earth, turning the dust to mud.

I threw my arms over my head and huddled down, trying to protect myself. The rain poured and pounded and poured, nearly forever.

When it did stop, I was soaking wet and a bit dazed, bruised even, from the hammering of the rain. I looked up and saw that the whole landscape had changed. Where it had been all dust and rock, now it was glistening grasses, trees and plants. Insects were buzzing around me. Birds were singing in the trees. Down below, the natives were celebrating, singing and eating. I could see the body of the Cassowary lying, forgotten on the ground. I wanted to fetch him, bury him. After all, we'd talked, like ol' mates, almost.

The sun was going down, and soon the villagers quietened and started going into their huts. Some of them were wandering around, so I hid myself. I'd seen they were carrying weapons and I didn't want to end up like my mate the Cassowary. My mate, Cass. Yeah, he needed a name.

I started to wonder when this trip would end, when I'd come around, you know? Then I remembered what Cass had said about sleeping under the tree. Maybe that was the only way to end this trip. Or what if this designer drug needed an antidote? I started to have visions of my body slowly wasting away, whilst my mind was stuck in this fantasyland.

When the sun finally set, I had me a look over the hill. There were small fires burning in the village, and in the flickering light I could see Cass still lying in the grass like a piece of garbage. Something about that seemed so very wrong.

I was upset, furious even, at the way Cass had been slaughtered. I couldn't get it out of my head that he needed a proper burial. After all, he was an intelligent being and he knew me.

There were no villagers wandering about, now it was dark, so I snuck down the hill. I don't know what I thought I was going to do. I couldn't exactly carry the bird – he was about twice my weight by the look of it. I crouched down where he lay and saw the weapon still sticking out of his chest. I took hold of the blood-spattered handle of the long knife and pulled it out of him. Then I nearly screamed when he moved. He twitched a bit, then lifted his head up and let out this kind of low moan.

"Shush and be bloody quiet," I hissed at him, "or the bastards will be out and at you again!" I'd obviously got it wrong, I thought. He must have just been badly injured, surely? I helped him to his feet.

"Wororan," he rumbled at me. "You came for me. Perhaps you know now, is that it?"

I didn't know what he was rattling about, but I needed to get him away quickly before we attracted some attention and ended up in the village cooking pot, or something ridiculous.

"Which way to the tree?" I asked. I'd totally lost my bearings by this time. Cass gestured with his beak, and we staggered away.

"How do I get back home?" I asked the bird.

He looked at me, with his head cocked to one side, as if I were stupid.

"You do not know?" he asked.

"I wouldn't be asking you if I did, would I?"

"The Dreamtime, Jack. That is how you can take us home."

"Us?" He was confusing me.

"I belong with you Jack, do you still not realise?"

There wasn't time to continue the conversation. As we saw the tree ahead of us, we heard noises from behind. The natives had spotted us and were chasing after us with weapons and torches.

"Shit," I said, "now were gonna get it."

"The tree," said Cass, "everything depends upon us getting to the tree!"

We tried to run, but the injured bird was really struggling. The villagers were yelling behind us. Things were whizzing past our heads, and I realised they were throwing boomerangs. Right on cue, something clipped the side of my head. It hurt like hell and I saw stars for a second, before I felt the famous Jack Wororan red mist descend.

I realised I'd still got the knife I'd pulled out of the bird. I turned in an absolute fury, and slung it as hard as I could. The blade whipped end over end and lodged into the chest of the giant. He coughed up some blood and dropped to his knees. The others stopped in their tracks, obviously shocked at seeing their main man go down. For a second no one did anything.

"Quickly, the tree!" Cass growled. We ran the last few yards, and suddenly they were after us again. They were berserk, screaming and wailing like wild animals. Rocks, knives and boomerangs were pelting down at us. At last we got to the tree.

"What now?" I yelled. Then I saw something hurtling at me through the air and felt the object smash into my head and everything went black.

I opened my eyes to a kaleidoscope of mingling colours. No pain here, just a sensation of moving in all directions at once. There was no up, no down, only around. I was in infinity, and there beside me was Cass.

Cass spoke to me, in a voice like a thousand people chanting. "We are going home Jack. You have done well. One thing is returned that was stolen." He fixed me with his stare, and whilst he talked, he seemed to be slowly fading away into the infinite colour, becoming part of it.

"But there is yet more, Jack," he continued, "more that rightfully belongs to you and your clan. You must go back, Jack. You must go back." He'd almost completely faded away, now. Then, as I reached out to him, he just burst into light.

The next thing I knew, I was sitting bolt upright in Mom's garden, under the tree. It was getting late, the sun about to go down. My head was in agony. I touched it and it stung like hell. My hand came away covered in blood. The sky was dark, clouds racing across the sky. Thunder rumbled, loud and long, and then the skies opened. A glorious dense rained started to pound into the dust, just like in my hallucination, or whatever the hell I thought it had been.

I staggered to my feet, laughing out loud. Rain in Koolyberrin! It was a bloody miracle, that's what it was!

I steadied myself, as I felt weak, dizzy and sick. The rain was washing the blood from my head all down me. It must have been the boomerang that hit me as we reached the tree, I thought. Then I realised how stupid that was. It had only been a trip, hadn't it? A drug induced nightmare. So how could I have the wound? I looked down at myself. Some Cassowary feathers still clung to my jeans. As I looked, they evaporated. Where the hell had I been? Course, I knew. I knew exactly where I'd been. The Dreamtime.

The four ol' fellas look at me now, with eyes like iron set in faces of slate, and so I smile.

"What's the matter, fellas?" I says. "That ol' secret knowledge, racial history and oral tradition not sitting too well alongside this scruffy junkie?" Course, I never usually call myself a junkie. Never actually used anything that hard. I don't want to die. But something about these guys makes me want to wind them up a little, you know?

The one with the walking stick talks next. "There's more to tell us, Jack. Go on."

Well, I guess you can imagine, I couldn't get that trip out of my mind. I dreamed about it for a while. But these were kind of ordinary dreams, you know? Just head-garbage getting cleaned away, not going through to the Dreamtime.

My main dream was about the way the giant fella sacrificed Cass to bring rain. Then I fetch Cass home and we get rain in Koolyberrin. Strange, eh? And I'd wake up and remember the bird saying "But there is yet more, Jack, more that rightfully belongs to you and your clan. You must go back, Jack."

Course, I knew I'd go back. But Mom was getting really poorly. She'd try to carry on, maybe hobble about the house for an hour or so, working. Then she'd spend all day resting, sat in her chair roasting in front of the kerosene heater, even though it was the middle of summer. And still she'd shiver. I didn't know how long she had left. We both just kind of accepted it was inevitable. It was the Wastes.

I don't know why, but for some reason I started to think about my Dad quite a lot. Course, the bird had mentioned my Dad. About how it thought my Dad was the reason I was in the Dreamtime.

Anyway, I started looking up a little history at the library in Dumbleootha. I knew some of Dad's past, but not all.

It was pretty weird how he vanished without a trace, you know? Usually, people disappear but something turns up. A clue, maybe a shoe or a wallet, if not the body itself. But for my Dad, nothing. The police were suspicious, course they were. After all, Dad had been working with them, as a community link with their investigations. But you fellas already know that, don't you? You know how the heads had been disappearing from the corpses of Aboriginals. The cops asked Dad to help, then he vanished. Wonder where he could have gone, eh?

So, the time came when I had to go back to the Dreamtime. Mom was fast asleep, settled for the night, when I lit one o' my magic ciggies and stretched out under the tree, and let the sleep come.

It was night in the Dreamtime. I pulled myself up from the ground, which I noticed was back to dry dust again, and looked around. There was a gusty wind that whipped the dust and sand around my legs. I noticed there was no sound of insects or animals. Just the wind and the creaking of that bloody great tree.

There was a bright moon out somewhere above, and the shadow of the tree stretched out in front of me. Something about the shadow it cast was wrong. I looked up and saw there was something hung in the tree. A lot of somethings, actually. Heads. Severed heads, dozens of 'em, tied to the ends of branches with their hair, or bits of rope. I screamed, I couldn't help it.

The heads were swaying and bobbing on the branches, in the breeze. There were men, women, kids. Some were tattooed in traditional styles. One head I saw still had glasses on, can you believe it? And then one head, the sight of it, froze me where I stood. I saw myself, and my insides turned to ice water. I shook myself, tried to calm down. The head just resembled me, that was all. Then the penny dropped. There was more than just a passing resemblance. I tried hard, really hard, to remember what my Dad had looked like. Those ol' memories, all kind of vague and misty now. I was so little when I last saw him. But I knew anyway. I knew that the head of my dead father had been hung on this tree.

Never knew 'til then just how much regret and bitterness I'd carried around with me because I'd had to grow up without a Dad. No one should have to find their father like that. When I was younger, I used to have this idea that I'd track my Dad down and I'd find him somewhere, filthy rich and a success, just as he was about to come and fetch me to join him. Balls to that, eh? I've found the sacred place of my elders, the Dreamtime, only to stumble across my murdered Dad. I don't mind telling you, I broke down then. Twenty five years of regret came out like a dam bursting. And I kept thinking, what would Dad have made of me, you know, if he'd been alive? What would he have made of the way I'd under achieved, just wasted myself? Of the hours I'd spent out of my head on the kind of shit that, well… had got me here?

It was a while before I pulled myself together. When I did, it was because I heard a voice. It was only a whisper, carried along on the breeze, that said, "Help me."

I made my way back to where I could see the settlement. A few of the huts were lit from inside. There didn't seem to be anyone moving around outside. So I snuck down closer and the whisper came again. "Help me, help me…"

As I got closer, I could see the flickering light of an open fire in a clear space at the middle of the huts. Some of the natives were sat around the fire. But outside the settlement, still a few yards away from me, there was something on the ground. A frail, wizened old man had been pegged out on the dry earth. Maybe it was some kind of torture. Maybe it was a slow execution, I don't know. For sure, he wouldn't have lived much longer out there like that.

The little ol' man looked up at me, and I put my finger across my lips, to shush him. I untied him, then picked him up to carry him away. He was tiny, fragile, as light as a baby. Then, I looked back towards the huts and stopped. About thirty of the villagers stood watching me, smiling. They had weapons. Then I went cold, when I saw the giant fella walk up from the back. I thought I'd killed him when I left him with a knife lodged in his chest, but he looked okay now.

He stepped towards me with his hands on his hips and started shouting something. I couldn't understand a word of it, but the tone was obvious. It was a threat, a challenge, a boast. He might as well have been shouting, Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough! I wasn't about to accept. But I was curious as to why he didn't just attack me. They could all just rush me, I'd have no chance.

"Let's go Jack," the ol' fella whispered to me, "you have to get me out of here while you can." The villagers were looking at me like I was their next meal. I could tell they wanted to have me, the air was thick with it. But it was like they were held on a leash.

So I backed away. And with each step I took back, they took one forward. All the time I was waiting for it to break. For one of them to lose control and go for me. It would only take one and the rest would surely follow. The old man in my arms trembled. We made our way back to the tree, almost in slow motion, and all the time the tall one was shouting his threats and sneering.

We got to the tree and I put the old man on the ground. The tribe just circled us, growling and muttering. But still, something stopped them charging in and slaughtering us. They must have wanted something I'd got. Something they would lose forever if they killed me. I looked down at the barren, dusty earth, and thought of rain. Obvious, wasn't it? They wanted Cass back. Tough. We'd got rain back in Koolyberrin, now. Cass was home. I'd taken back what had been stolen. Whilst I was still alive, these jokers must have thought they'd got a chance of having their rain back.

My problem was, how to get back home. I couldn't just lie down for a nap, y'know, sleep my way back, with these savages breathing down my neck, could I? So we had a stand off.

I looked up and saw the head of my father hanging in the tree. The giant just laughed at me. Slowly, cautiously, I started to climb the tree. I wasn't leaving here without the head of my father. But that seemed to agitate the tribe. They started chattering, pointing at the severed heads.

I snapped a dry branch off, and held the dried up head of my father. Then hell broke loose. All of a sudden, the tribe started pelting me with rocks. The giant started to climb the tree.

"Quickly, Jack, leave it, we have to go!" The ol' man was almost crying.

"Not leaving my Dad, dammit!" Then I felt the giant grab hold of my ankle. The fella was strong, really kind of not-human strong. One yank and I was scraped back along the bough, as the rocks kept hitting me. But I held onto Dad.

The giant grinned at me. He held on to me with one hand, and pulled his other back. There was a vicious looking blade in it. The thought went through my mind, this is plan B. If they can't have Cass back, they're just gonna kill me.

I pulled up the knee of my free leg and kicked back as hard as I could. The giant's face burst open under my heel, his head rocking back. He dropped the knife and let go of me long enough for me to pull myself away a bit.

The big bastard kept coming though. He bellowed like a wild animal and shook his head, laughing as he splashed his blood all over us. He was hard, alright. This was a fight I wasn't going to win. Not here and now, not like this. I needed to get home. I was at the tree, but I needed unconsciousness. There was only one thing to do.

I looked down and saw the old man cowering below. This was going to hurt, but not as much as having my arms and legs torn off by jolly not-green, back there. So I stood on the bough, took a breath, and chucked myself off headfirst.

I was in the place of light again. Not really a place, though. I realised it was the place between places. It was infinity. And I held my father's dead and rotting head in my hands. The old man I'd rescued was in front of me, smiling.

"Who are you," I asked him.

"I am Koolyberrin, Jack." He took my hands in his, and looked me in the eye.

"Jack, you are the son of many fathers. There has always been a Koolyberrin. And whilst there has been a Koolyberrin, there has been a Wororan. Wororan and Koolyberrin, like the sky and the earth. Like the sun and the rain. We have been damaged, Jack. You are the last Wororan. It's time to make a stand. Can you do it?"

"I don't get it," I said. I was starting to panic. He might as well have asked me to save the world. Christ, I needed a hit.

Koolyberrin shook me. "Babies get fed from the teat, Jack. Men go and hunt their food." The look on his face didn't make me feel too good about myself.

When I came to, I was home. Well, the garden, at least. I felt like I'd been through a meat grinder. I had lumps on my head the size of cricket balls, and each time I tried to turn my neck, I got a searing jolt of pain and was blind for a few seconds. I expected to see the severed head of my Dad, but no, it wasn't there.

I somehow dragged myself to bed and slept. When I slept, I dreamed. Proper dreams, not the sort that try and chase you back into the real world. I dreamed of Dad.

In this dream, I could see Dad clearly, his face wasn't a mystery to me anymore. It was as much a childhood memory as a dream. A memory of how there were always visitors coming to the house to see Dad. Sometimes it was the police. Sometimes other important looking white fellas. Most times though, it was people like us. Dirt-poor Abos. Always people coming and asking things. And Dad always had answers for them. When the white blokes came around, especially when the police came, he'd have a big briefcase full of papers that they'd look at.

I needed to rest quite a bit after that trip into the Dreamtime. I was hurt fairly badly. Mom tried to give me a hard time about getting into fights at my age, but she was too weak to make much of a go at it.

It's funny but, for a while, I felt I was actually living in a dream. The real world seemed to have lost some of its vigour y'know? There was rain now, for sure. But Koolyberrin was still barren. We'd just traded dust for mud. It was still a ghost town. Every now and again I'd hear a voice in my head asking me if I was ready to take a stand. Or I'd hear Cass telling me I wasn't the son of my father. I tried to shut it out. I'd spent most of my adult life underachieving, being a waster. Why change now? I was kind of numb. I couldn't see any colour, I had no sense of taste. In short, there was something missing.

When I was younger, getting out of my head was a way of getting numb, of forgetting what it was in life that made me not want to live it. Pretty ironic then, wasn't it, that now I went looking to score, so that I could escape the numbness. Into what, I don't know.

So I blew a few dollars on some hard shit. And I sat in the garden, ready to pump myself full of poison. I knew it was a kind of a no turning back point. Once I did this, I'd be on a slippery slope, and no brakes. It was a still afternoon. No breeze, no rain today, just stifling Koolyberrin heat. The house was grey and falling apart. Koolyberrin was dying. Mom was dying. Now, I was going to be dying. Jack, last of the Wororans. Looking up at the house, I was hit by a sudden memory. Blue skies, voices talking, people laughing, a party in the garden. Lots of Koolyberrin people eating and drinking. Mom and Dad making time to talk to everyone. There were trees lining the road leading to the house. The nearby houses weren't boarded up back then. People lived in Koolyberrin. There were fields, gardens. Koolyberrin lived.

Now, though something was missing. Something was missing from Koolyberrin and something was missing from me. Koolyberrin and Wororan. Like the sun and the rain.

I was crying. I don't know when it started, but now I couldn't stop it. I cried for the wasted years of my life. I cried for Mom and Dad. I cried for all the people that had died of the Wastes. And I cried for Koolyberrin.

The drugs went down the toilet. I didn't know if I was strong enough, but I was at least going to try to make a stand.

Mom had kept a lot of Dad's things. For a long time, she'd kept expecting him to come back home. One of the things she'd kept was that briefcase. There was a lot in the there. I learned a lot.

The ol' fellas are muttering and whispering to each other now. Walking stick man looks at my ciggie, burned down to a tab end, now. I laugh.

"This? Herbal, mate. Helps with the pain." I pat my knackered leg, just to remind him. But I do see a change in their faces. I see something almost verging on respect. Well, okay, acceptance then. That's good. I need these ol' fellas to accept me. The rain has just about stopped. Christ knows how long I've been talking at them. They probably don't reckon much to the way I've told the story. The style, if you like. But I can learn. The oral tradition is important. I know that now.

Walking stick man clasps his hands together. "Jack, I believe you are the son of your father," he says. "Tell us how you finished it."

"That I will," says I.

Before I could go back into the Dreamtime I had a lot of work to do. I was aware that I didn't know enough about my culture, my history. I needed to know what else had been taken from Koolyberrin, that had ripped the life out of us. I needed to know how it could have happened, how a gate from here into the Dreamtime had somehow been abused. I needed to know what my father must have known.

Some of the things I found out, well, I guess you ol' fellas have known all along, am I right? Like the fact that twenty odd years ago, someone started going into cemeteries, digging up the corpses of freshly buried Aborigines and removing their heads. Like the fact that it's an old traditional belief that the soul is actually a physical object, it has substance, and it lives in the head. A long time ago, our early ancestors believed that by removing someone's head you could take their life force, absorb it, use it, live from it. And that's what this has all been about. Life. Because there was something out there in the Dreamtime, something malignant, and it was dying. So it took life from wherever it could get it. From our world. First it took souls to feed itself. Then it took them to populate its world. Then it started taking the soul of Koolyberrin itself. It took the rain, the heart and soul of Koolyberrin. And that's when people started dying of the Wastes.

Dad knew all this. And so did you ol' fellas. Don't look surprised. I've done my homework. You were The Five, you and my Dad. The elders charged with looking after Koolyberrin. And Dad was the pre-eminent one amongst you wasn't he?

Course, when the police wanted some help figuring out how and why graves were being dug up, corpses being beheaded, youse could hardly start talking to them about other worlds, evil spirits and so on. They'd probably have had you locked up. So you decided to tackle it yourselves. Bloody right too. Seeing as it was all your faults, you and Dad.

Dad kept notes in that briefcase, you see. Like a diary. Before my tree, my little seed factory, there was another tree in Dad's garden, wasn't there? A tree that was a gate into the Dreamtime. A tree you all cultivated. But by the time you all realised it could open two ways, it was too late. So my Dad took it on himself to go in there and make it right, didn't he? That's why he vanished without a trace. That bastard thing in there had him.

So you boys did the only thing you could. My memories from that time have started coming back. I was only a little boy, but I can remember, now, the four of you cutting that tree down. Then you dug down to get to the roots. Then you burned the lot. Closed the gate.

That was it. That thing, that entity in the Dreamtime couldn't get to us anymore. But it had our rain. It had the souls of some of our people. And somehow, it had taken the soul of Koolyberrin.

Took me a long time to figure that one out. How do you take the soul of a village?

Well, I did my learning. Our people have been in Australia for sixty thousand years. I believe you can trace the Wororans, and the other Aranda tribes, back that far and beyond. And Koolyberrin wasn't always a place. At one time our people spent their lives on the move, wandering around the Finke and all that area. Koolyberrin was just an idea back then. Five tribes put their hearts and souls into that idea. The Wororans guided the growth of it. And in time the idea of Koolyberrin was given form and shape. The Koolyberrin Tjurunga was crafted, a ten foot slab of stone, that one day would be put down, when Koolyberrin was ready to be a place. Not a big place. Not like a capital city. But a special place. Where our beliefs could live. Where we could still see the magic in our world. When the white man stopped trying to slaughter the Aranda, we needed that place, didn't we?

But then the Tjurunga had been stolen. And I had to get it back.

The four ol' fellas look at me like I've sprouted wings. They never expected this, I can tell you. I feel a bit guilty for winding them up so much. But I'm enjoying it as well. One of them is crying.

"Now there is no mistake. Your father would be proud of you Jack," he says. The others nod and murmur. I feel alive.

So, I had to look forward to another trip to the Dreamtime. Another confrontation with the giant. I went prepared. I know people, unsavoury people, you could say. The last of my money went on two highly illegal handguns. I'd no intention of getting into a wrestling match with that big bastard.

I took myself into the garden and lit a magic spliff. Soon, I had the familiar sensation, and drifted into the Dreamtime, sure I'd be coming back a winner. I'd got guns, brains and a lot of anger. Thought I'd be invincible. How wrong can you be?

The place had changed again, when I got there. The barren ground was grey. The sky was blood red, with black clouds tearing across like rags in a hurricane. The tree was huge, black and bare. No heads now, just brittle, poking branches. The air smelled like acid. From the hilltop, I looked down to the settlement. Most of the huts were smoking, burned out husks. There was no sign of any of the villagers. At the centre of the settlement, the larger hut still stood, blackened and charred. The wooden posts around it, I saw, were topped with severed heads. Aborigine heads, painted with traditional colours. Carried on the wind, I heard the sound of a long, low laugh, coming from that central hut. And I knew that was where I'd find the Tjurunga.

I stopped at the posts surrounding the hut. Not because I wanted to, but because I felt one more step would surely kill me. The sensation that I was about to die was so overpowering, I nearly gave up to it there and then.

The heads on the posts seemed to glare down at me. And then they moved. As they floated down towards me, bodies grew, like weeds putting down roots. Twelve dead men faced me. I paused, listening to the blowing of my breath, whereas they had none. Then they rushed me.

Before I could reach for the guns, I was pinned, chucked to the ground, stamped on, kicked, punched. I tried to curl up into a ball, but they dragged me straight and the beating continued. It'll stop, I thought. They're going to take me to the giant. But no, it carried on. I knew they'd kill me.

Blow after blow pounded down. When it stopped hurting, when it started going black, I knew I was close to slipping away. I thought of Koolyberrin.

"I'm alive!" I shouted, but the beating carried on. "I'm Aranda!" Still they pounded me. "I'm Jack Wororan and I've come for Koolyberrin!"

It stopped and they were gone, as quick as that. It took me a while, but eventually I was able to sit up. My head had bombs going off in it. Blood was all over the place. Something was grinding and cracking inside me, probably my ribs.

It was supposed to have been so simple. I come and shoot the giant, frighten off the natives with my "magic thunder sticks" and take the Tjurunga home. And they all lived happily ever after. Balls to that.

The guns were still there, which made me feel less like I'd died and gone to hell. I picked them up and got to my feet. The place was quiet again. How had I made those ghosts, or whatever they were, go away? At that time, I didn't know. There was a lot I didn't understand about the Dreamtime.

So, I walked slowly, each step agony, to the large hut. There was an open doorway. Inside, the hut was lit with five burning torches. And on the floor, the thing I had wanted to see, more than anything else I could ever remember. The Tjurunga. Who could have thought a lump of rock could be so beautiful? The designs that adorned it, so ancient, but still intact. Then I realised I didn't know how to take it home. What was I thinking? You don't just pick up a solid rock that's ten feet log, two feet high and six feet across. You don't just carry something like that in your back pocket, do you? Anyway, I barely had time to consider it before I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"It's mine Wororan."

I spun around, moaning at how it hurt. The giant was there, grinning at me. Funny, although I was now in fear of my life again, the thing that hit me most was that he'd spoke to me in English.

"You've learned the lingo, then," I said, backing away.

He laughed. "This is my Dreamtime, Jack," he said. And that was his biggest mistake, although I didn't realise it just then. I'd backed away as far as I could, up against the wall of the hut. The giant was blocking the only doorway.

"The Tjurunga is mine you bastard," I said. I took out the guns and pointed them at him. "Where I come from, we call these guns."

Again, he laughed that booming laugh. "Where I come from, we call this the Dreamtime." He was totally confident, sure he had me. But he didn't realise he'd slipped up again with that remark. But then, neither did I, yet.

I fired off a few rounds, kept pumping the trigger. His smile never faltered. I actually saw the bullets slow down as they flew towards him. They slowed until they stopped, hovering in front of him, like trained gnats. Then he pulled them out of the air, and dropped them into his mouth like peanuts. I tried to fire the guns off again, but they felt weird, and when I looked at them, I saw I was just holding rocks.

I'd been beaten half to death, then realised I had no way of moving the Tjurunga, and now seen my one survival hope evaporate. At that point, it seemed pretty hopeless. It got worse.

Before I could react, the giant stepped forward and slapped me with the back of his hand. I went flying across the hut, and landed in a heap on the floor. I could barely breathe, I hurt so much.

"You can die like your father Jack," he laughed, "slowly and in great pain. Beg if you want. It makes it more pleasurable for me."

When you believe you're going to die, you somehow find extra reserves of energy. I forced myself up, and ran for the doorway that he'd moved away from. He didn't seem too bothered, or in a hurry to stop me. I soon found out why. As I ran away, the ground in front of me cracked open, splitting apart like a B-movie earthquake. I just managed to stop myself falling in. And still the bastard was laughing as he came up behind me.

"I am your god here Jack. This is my Dreamtime." Finally, it dawned on me. As I lay on the heaving ground, struggling to breathe, bleeding from dozens of wounds, I realised he was lying.

"This isn't your Dreamtime at all!" I screamed at him, knowing I was right. "This is my Dreamtime! It belongs to my people! You don't even belong here, you parasite!" I was beginning to understand the way the Dreamtime worked. The world of dreams. You see, anything can happen in dreams. And this was my Dreamtime.

I stood up and dusted myself down. "I don't like hurting like this," I said. And my wounds healed as though they'd never happened. I could breathe again. The giant was quiet now, watching warily. I walked back into the hut and bent to touch the Tjurunga. "You are mine," I said, "and I am yours." The Tjurunga was gone, sitting in my back pocket, like a pebble.

"No!" The giant charged at me, wild and shrieking. I simply willed myself out of the way, and watched him crash headlong into the wall.

I ordered the ground outside to close itself up, and made my way back to the tree. I congratulated myself, then. I would restore Koolyberrin, and I'd mastered the Dreamtime. Once again, how wrong can you be? The Dreamtime won't be mastered by anyone, but can be used by anything that can dream.

I was within spitting distance of the tree when he came roaring back after me.

"You're wrong, Wororan," he screamed. "We were both wrong! This is our Dreamtime!" We faced each other for a second, then he hit me again. I flew bodily through the air with the force of it, and felt shattered inside.

"My will is stronger!" He ran at me again. I was terrified he was right, but I knew I still had some influence here. It wasn't that we were hitting the Dreamtime at each other. It was there for both of us. As he came at me I willed greater strength into myself, and hit him back. Imagine hitting an oak tree with a lump hammer. We both staggered away from the collision, reeling from the impact. I didn't think I could take any more punishment. I took the opportunity to run at the tree.

"No! I won't let you go, Wororan!" I heard him screaming at me, and then the tree burst into almighty, searing flames.

The giant was laughing again, like a lunatic. "We'll both stay here forever, Jack! You can be my friend!" He held his arms out to me, grinning, beckoning me to him. And as I watched he changed. The form he'd taken on, of a giant Aborigine, fell away, revealing his true shape. I know now that creatures like him exist, but no one should ever have to see them.

"I'm going home," I said, and I walked into the flaming tree. It was my Dreamtime, my people's Dreamtime, and I wasn't going to let these flames hurt me. The creature was screaming, growling and roaring as he chased me.

This time it was different. I was travelling whilst I was fully conscious, not even sure if that could be done. My senses were screwed, I could see smells and hear the heat of the flames. And then suddenly I was back, in the garden, the tree wrapped around me, tearing at me. I struggled to free myself, panicking, but the tree didn't want to let me go.

Then I felt something grab my leg, pull me. I looked back and screamed. I was in the tree, actually exiting its swollen trunk. And the creature was following, holding on to me. His grip tightened on my leg. Now I could hear him growling, at first as though from far away, but getting louder and closer. He was coming through the tree, into the real world. I tried to shake my leg free, but he held even tighter. Then I felt sheer agony as he twisted my leg, snapping the bones. The pain and adrenalin forced me to act. I kicked back with my free leg, like I had once before, with all my strength, and felt him let go.

I spilled onto the ground, and tried to drag myself away. The tree was shaking like a mad thing, the trunk swelling and pulsing as that bastard tried to get into our world. I had an idea. Mom's heater was out on the porch, waiting for me to fill it. There was a canister of Kerosene. I dragged and hopped my way along, crying with the pain, and doused the tree. He must have been nearly through, because I could hear his voice.

"I'm coming for you Wororan! I'm coming for you and yours!"

I reached for my packet of ciggies and slid the lighter out. "Burn, you bastard," I said, and lit the tree.

It went up like a fireworks show. The roaring of the fire wasn't enough to drown out the noise that thing made. In the end, he squealed like a roasting pig. I stopped and watched the tree burn, right down to a charcoal husk. Five times I doused it with more kerosene, to keep it going. I wanted to be sure, you see.

I sat in the garden until the sun came up, just thinking. After a while, I reached into my back pocket for the Tjurunga. Course, it wasn't there. Objects don't come and go in the Dreamtime quite like that, you see. It's all about our perception of it. We are the dreamers. I knew where it would be, there was no rush. Once I got my leg sorted at the hospital in Dumbleootha, I organised a couple of lads to come and dig under the burned tree. Sure enough, it was there. They told the Gazette, and all of a sudden I'm a local celeb for unearthing this priceless cultural treasure. Balls to that, eh?

I can see the ol' fellas have never had oral tradition like this. But they know everything I've said is true. I take them around to see the stone and they support me while I hobble along. It's a real spiritual experience when they see it.

"Jack, you've done a great thing. Your great grandchildren will sing about you," says the oldest one.

"I don't know about that," says I. "Don't know if I fancy having kids."

"But you must. The Wororan line must not end with you. You have responsibilities now. You must take your place as one of The Five."

"I guess you're right," says I, and I know he is. So, I better find me a woman. That should be easy enough. I won't be needed at home now, seeing as Mom's getting better all the time. And people have started moving back to Koolyberrin. The earth's fertile again. We're alive.