A New Bloom

A cool wind blew through the tall pine trees and created whitecaps along the shore. An eerie silence was broken by the screams of ghosts. Listen closely: do you hear them, calling his name? Captain Hook is what they are saying. They aren’t the spirits of henchmen but the anger left behind by the indigenous Polynesians who had made the island their home many centuries before Hook. They are angry because their lovely island home had been renamed. How would you feel if your peaceful existance was shattered by the pain and rage of those dumped there? How would you feel if your customs and ways of living were desecrated because the Crown needed a place to stow its undesirables? And once the damage to life, liberty, and reputation of your home has been destroyed, the Crown ‘gives’ control of back to your people …The years go by and now your home is a tourist attraction, where mainlanders and others come to ooh and aah as the whitecaps lap at the remains of the prison. You watch as they grin while readiing the placards on the historical buildings and as children run the streets, pretending to be a Captain Hook that you and your people know is nothing like the real one.On those days, you realize you still live on Exile Island.

I watch (read: listen to as I rush about the house doing other things) Al-Jazeera News and one of the reports yesterday was about refugees from Australia’s offshore prisons. The story made me think of  Norfolk Island, which is part of Oceania and the actual focus of this little story. Welcome to how my mind works … and Deblog Day 2 …