Chapter Two

 December 2002

The train pulls out of Central Station. I'm going to the Blue Mountains. My phone beeps as a text message arrives. Shelley wants to know if I'll be back for dinner tonight. I start to reply but the screen pixelates and turns upside down. I can't type anything. I turn it off and on again but the screen is still wrong.

I spend the day walking, taking in the hazy blue atmosphere. There is nobody else here. I gaze at the Three Sisters, a rock formation that juts into the skyline. I pass waterfalls, the torrents seem distant and subdued. Brown butterflies flicker around me. I feel like I've walked into another world.

As I walk out of the station in Sydney that evening a man approaches me. He says something I can't quite understand. I'm not sure if he's asking me for money or trying to sell me drugs. I shake my head and quickly walk away, striding onwards. 

The song Jane Says by Jane's Addiction creeps tinnily through an open shop door. My song, except I'm not called Jane, I'm not a heroin addict, I don't know anyone called Sergio, I've never hidden a television, I don't wear a wig and I have no particular wish to go to Spain. It follows me up the road, echoing in my head.

I slow down. Nothing is familiar. I should be in the busy city centre by now, weaving my way through the Saturday evening crowds. I look at my phone. The screen still isn't working. I keep going. Soon, I think, I'll turn a corner and I'll find myself on Pitt Street or George Street. It doesn't happen.

I think about turning around, retracing my steps to the station and seeing where I went wrong. But I know my fairy tales and myths. You must never turn round. Those who turn round are trapped forever or turned into pillars of salt. I must keep looking forwards.

My legs ache. I've been walking most of the day. I can't stop. I have to get out of this otherworld, get back to Sydney. My heart thuds in my chest. What if I'm stuck here forever?

I've come to a residential area. There are street signs on the corners. Beneath the road names is the name of the area. St Peters. I know this place. I travel here to work on the subway every week day.

I stop walking. I turn around. In the distance I see the city skyline, the Centre Point Tower rising above it.

I have been walking in the wrong direction. If I had turned around I would have known.

I really should stop believing in fairy tales.

I look at my phone as I start walking back. The screen has righted itself. I reply to Shelley's text at last.


Jane Says



Chapter Three






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