26

The face of an almond-eyed girl flashes on the screen and Kenneth feels he knows her. He cannot translate the television’s words over the chitter-chattering of voices. Another girl appears. A blonde girl. Kenneth gets closer to the television and tries to hear what it is saying. He has seen that face before. Mia, the voice says, Mia and Amelia … Mia and Amelia … Snip it out … snip them out … snip them up. Has he snipped it out of something? The names and the faces are familiar. He glances at the walls. At the pretty faces that stare back of girls and women and boys and men. He closes his eyes while the tips of his fingers trace lightly over their images. His tries to read them, tries to decipher their body language as if they are Braille alphabets.

Outside, a full moon punctuates the day sky and Kenneth wonders if this will be a day for howling dogs. How do you catch a cloud or hold a moonbeam? Down the street the lined-up letterboxes have eaten; their tongues stick out like snakes hissing. He has to snatch them before they are taken. He marches up and down the quiet street. Quickly … quickly … the voice tells him, or they will be gone … The secrets will be lost … Lost secrets … Lost in space. Kenneth scratches his oily head. Where does the moon fit? He decides to watch The Sound of Music again. The letters, the letterboxes, the hills and the music—their messages are no longer clear. Last night he dreamt and when he woke he knew the answer but it was as difficult to pin down as a cloud … as flighty as a feather … as unpredictable as weather … And it disappeared leaving a fuzzy conundrum-ic trail of fly dust. Kenneth snatches the contents of the letterbox in front of him and stuffs it into his green plastic bag. ‘Fly dust!’ he shouts. ‘Fly. Dust.’

There is nothing poking out from the brass numeral box and its golden lock prevents a proper inspection. Kenneth peers inside and a fold of white stares back. He squeezes his hand inside and his fingers tweeze a corner, pull out the piece of paper. He unfolds it and listens. Christmas, it says. Christmas in July. Kenneth is baffled. Christmas in July?

‘Hey! Oi! What are you doing?’ Kenneth turns and there is a dark-haired woman pointing her finger at him. She crawls along the curb in her white car. ‘Leave the mail alone. Get out! Get lost! I’ll call the police.’

Kenneth snarls at her then scampers away like a hunchback. His lanky limbs carry him off down a long overgrown laneway where she cannot follow.