Dear Dingo

I've been trying to write a few short stories -- here is one based on our tip to Australia in 2008. 

The outback. Crocodiles, snakes, spiders. Baby-snatching dingoes. Too much heat. Too little water. This fiercely beautiful land is designed to kill you. Dear dingo, don’t snatch me at Ayer’s Rock.

The red centre of an island continent, the sandstone monolith is a stone dropped in the middle of the desert like a pebble in a pond, creating carnelian ripples of sandy soil. We disembark into the shimmering air and feel the heat envelop us like a dryer-hot blanket. An annoyance of flies swarms around our faces. It is ten o’clock in the morning at Uluru, and it is already nearing 40 degrees Celsius.

We booked a dinner in the outback: The Sounds of Silence promises local specialities, an unparalleled view of Ayer’s Rock in the setting sun, and of the southern night sky. I hope we might see a dingo, but at a distance. Ayer’s Rock and dingoes are entangled in my mind, twin signposts of danger and destination. I hope we don’t see snakes. I dress in cotton pants, sandals, and a light jacket, and take my netted hat to guard against flies.

Sparkling wine and canapés greet us. Our group of forty meanders from the bus to the clearing where the dinner is set, admiring the sunset. The light surfs the reddish-brown sand with a molten wave. We are golden in the long rays of the setting sun, and look better for it. Lines are smoothed, skin perfected. We glow. Dear dingo, where are you? Has the sun or the sand gilded your golden-red fur?

We hold hands as we finish our sparkling wine. There are very few flies, and a few grasshopper-like bugs in the sparse vegetation of the desert. We can hear them, a small rustling song in the desert scrub. Chirp, chirp. The smell of roasting meats lures us on. We find seats at the white-clothed tables, ready for our dinner of kangaroo and crocodile. Our glasses are refilled, this time with cool, sweet white wine. I take a sip and sit back with a sigh of anticipation, listening to the grasshoppers (chirp, chirp) and the sound of laughter. Dear dingo, I don’t see you. Do you dream of cool water or of sweet white wine?

As each table seats eight, we introduce ourselves to those who sit down next to us. “Nice to meet you. I’m Elizabeth, from Canada”. We go through a slow, polite dance of introductions, walking around the table to shake hands with everyone.  And although they all say it’s nice to meet me, we settle down in our original places and continue to talk primarily to the person with whom we arrived. It is a Jane Austen country-dance in the outback, minus the lace and the eighteenth-century manners and with more than a bit of ankle on display. As Mr. Darcy observes, every savage can dance. Dear dingo, you are not here. Are you dancing in the desert?

“Ooh!’ A woman at a nearby table has given a short, sharp cry. We look around, but we don’t see anything amiss. We resume our conversation. “Ooh!” Another woman, at another table, emits the same sharp cry. I wonder if this is a prelude to a show, put on by actors for the benefit of the guests. I’ve been to a show like this, where opera singers are planted in the midst of patrons, and the man next to you, with whom you’ve been chatting, suddenly stands up and belts out something powerful in note-perfect Italian. Or maybe a snake?

The third time, the sharp “ooh!” comes from a woman who stands up and brushes off her clothes. Unlikely to be a snake, then. Maybe a spilled canapé. The woman sits back down. I pick up my wine glass and put it to my lips. “Ooh!”

This time the sharp cry has come from me.

It’s definitely not a show.

I put my glass down hastily. As the sun sinks, the grasshoppers have become bolder, attracted by the candles on the dining tables and other lights on the buffet table. One has dropped into my wine glass and shows no signs of wanting to leave. In Canada, one can drink Grasshopper beer, but it’s just a label on a lager. Here, the grasshopper has invaded the gewürztraminer. Chirp, chirp.

There is a rising crescendo of short, sharp exclamations.  Most, if not all, are from the female guests. My husband is in paroxysms of laughter. He flicks a grasshopper out of his wine and continues to drink it.  My wine has remained untouched since the grasshopper appeared in it, although I’d really like to have a big swig. There are now two grasshoppers in my glass, sitting companionably, side-by-side. A third jumps on my khaki pant leg. Ooh! Flick!

Grasshoppers start landing not only on the table, but on me, and on everyone else, too. “Ooh!” is the new black. Chirp, chirp. Flick, flick. Ooh! When we arrive at the buffet, we find not only grasshoppers, but also moths, attracted by the lamps. My husband piles his plate with crocodile and kangaroo. I take what is not covered in bugs, resulting in a very small helping. “It’s just more protein,” my husband says, unhelpfully. Like Queen Victoria, I am not amused. I snag a new wine glass and try to protect it by draping it with the unlovely hat with the netting, but the grasshoppers simply get tangled in the mesh. I pick up my knife and fork, determined to have some food, but the light is uncertain. I can’t be sure what is food, and what might be volunteer buggy protein. Flick?

I give up.

Then I look up.

The sun has set while we (well, some of us) have eaten. The Milky Way is thick with stars, bright, remote, impossibly clustered into creamy swirls of light in a dark glass bowl. There are more stars than I have seen in a lifetime of city dwelling. My mouth would have fallen open, but I am mindful of the grasshoppers and keep it firmly closed.  Dear dingo, do you suckle at the Milky Way in the dreamtime?

As the diners finish, a star-talker begins to explore the night sky, pointing out planets and constellations. It is so dark and so clear that he uses a powerful flashlight to point out the section of the sky he is explaining, and we can see it outline the area easily. It’s like a laser show in a planetarium, but without the music of Pink Floyd. The chorus of ooh! has almost ceased, as the food on the tables is removed, the lights are turned off, and the attention of both the guests and the grasshoppers is refocused.

The sky here is darker than almost anywhere else on earth, removed from light pollution, and not clouded by humidity. Other places have dark sky preserves, including Jasper National Park and the Cypress Hills in my home province of Alberta. Uluru needs no designation. It’s the ancestor of dark sky. The star-talker points out where the Southern Cross should be, but I confess I don’t see it. It must be small. There is a dingo, though: Canis Major roams the southern sky. “Where is the Great Grasshopper?”  I whisper to my husband.  Shhhh.

While we gape at the stars and take our turns at the telescope, someone begins to play the didgeridoo. The music vibrates through the air, through the soil, through my skin. It’s enthralling, as if the throbbing howl is coming from the mouth of the earth. (Drone, moan, throb). There are rocks at the base of Uluru itself, which, carved by wind and weather into hollow swirls and half-tubes, some painted with pictographs, could be instruments for such a sound. Later in our trip my husband goes into a shop and comes back with his own didgeridoo. It proves impossible to pack and must be shipped home, all four and a half feet of hollow wooden tube. Moan. Dear dingo, which came first, your howl or the didgeridoo?  Or does a circle have no beginning?

It’s time to leave. I am still hungry. I think longingly of breakfast and wonder if I will dream of dingoes. A pack of wolves. A dreaming of dingoes? We trek back to the bus, me clutching my netted hat. I’ll need it tomorrow for the flies. I sit down. “Ooh!” I’ve inadvertently brought two hitchhiking grasshoppers onto the bus, trapped in the netting. Chirp, chirp. Everyone laughs. My husband rescues the stowaways and turfs them back into the desert. Flick, flick.  Dear dingo, do you dine on grasshopper? Meet me at Ayer’s Rock.