The lyrics echoed in the hollow chambers.

This story was inspired by the original songs by Banjo Paterson (1895), Eric Bogle (1971), Shane MacGowan (1985),                            

 Gabriel Jeroschewitz (March 28th, 2025).

The old man sat on his porch, the weathered planks groaning softly under the weight of his years. April, the month of fading autumn, painted the suburban street in hues of amber and gold. The Anzac Day parade was about to begin. He could hear the distant, muffled thump of the bass drum, the thin reedy notes of a lone flute testing the air. Around him, the street stirred with anticipation. Families emerged from their houses, waving small Australian flags, their faces bright with patriotic fervour. He watched them, a ghost in his living room, his gaze as brittle as the autumn leaves skittering across his lawn.

He remembered a different April, a lifetime and a world away. An April that smelled of eucalyptus and damp earth, before the salt-laced tang of the Aegean Sea filled his nostrils. Back then, April meant the first warmth kissing the Murray River, the air alive with the buzz of insects, and the boundless horizon beckoning him onwards. He was young then, a man made of sinew and dreams, his life a tapestry woven from open roads and starlit skies.

The lyrics echoed in the hollow chambers of his memory, a song from a lifetime ago. He’d tramped from the verdant basin of the Murray to the ochre heart of the outback, his ‘Matilda’ – a rolled swag – slung over his shoulder, the sun on his face and the wind at his back. He’d known hunger and thirst, but they were honest hardships, seasoned with the wild beauty of the land. He’d slept under a million stars, each one a diamond in the velvet cloak of night, feeling as limitless as the continent itself.

Then, the year the world tore itself apart, nineteen-fifteen. The call came, a resonant clang that shattered the quiet rhythm of his rambling life.

Work. He snorted, a dry rasping sound. What work did they mean? He’d known work, the honest toil of the land, the sweat and grit that built a man. But this… this was something else entirely. They gave him a stiff and ill-fitting uniform, a tin hat that felt absurdly heavy on his head, and a cold and alien rifle in his hands. They stripped away the freedom and wildness, replaced it with regimented lines, and barked orders.

He remembered the quay, a chaotic swirl of faces – tear-streaked, proud, bewildered. The air thrummed with a strange, febrile energy, a mixture of fear and excitement. And the band, perched on the troopship’s deck, played that jaunty, deceptively cheerful tune.

Waltzing Matilda. A song of freedom, of wandering, now a soundtrack to their forced exodus. How ironic. He could still hear the melody twisting in the wind as the land receded, and the grey horizon swallowed them whole.

Gallipoli. The name itself tasted like ash in his mouth. He hadn’t known hell until he set foot on that beach, the sand already stained a sickening crimson. The air crackled with the relentless whine of bullets, the earth shuddered under the incessant artillery barrage. Suvla Bay. He closed his eyes, and the image seared onto the backs of his eyelids, as vivid as if it were yesterday. Butchered. The word was not hyperbole. It was the cold, brutal truth. The Turks were waiting for them, dug in, prepared. The Australians were lambs led to the slaughter, wave after wave thrown against an unyielding wall of fire. He saw faces flash before his mind’s eye – young, eager faces, twisted in agony, frozen in death. He smelled the acrid stench of gunpowder, the metallic tang of blood, the cloying sweetness of decay.

Five minutes. That was all it took to shatter dreams, to extinguish lives. He remembered diving for cover, the earth erupting around him, the screams of men swallowed by the monstrous roar of artillery. He survived those first horrific minutes, only to be plunged into a nightmare that stretched into weeks, into an eternity. over again…

The band, that phantom band, is still playing in his memory. Waltzing Matilda, a macabre dirge for the fallen. They buried their dead in shallow graves, the sand still stained and saturated, only to return to the same carnage, the same relentless slaughter. Life became a cycle of terror, punctuated by brief, hollow respites.

Seven weeks. He’d existed, not lived. He’d become an animal, driven by instinct, by the primal urge to survive. He’d seen things no man should ever see, done things no man should ever have to do. The bodies piled up, grotesque monuments to the futility of it all. The living walked among the dead, indistinguishable in their shared misery, their shared trauma. The shell. He didn’t even remember the impact, just the blinding flash, the deafening roar, and then… nothingness. He woke in a dim, sterile tent, pain throbbing through his body, a nameless dread settling in his soul. He looked down, and saw the space where his legs used to be, the bandages stained a horrifying red. No more waltzing Matilda. The song mocked him now, a cruel reminder of everything he had lost. His freedom, his youth, his legs, his innocence. He had seen the worst of humanity, which had taken root in his soul, poisoning everything.

…

Heroes? He scoffed again, the sound bitter. They were broken, discarded remnants of a war that no one understood. They were shipped back, not in triumph, but in shame, in silence. He had been grateful for the emptiness, for the absence of pitying eyes. He didn’t want their pity. He wanted oblivion.

The band played. That damned song, a relentless, haunting refrain. But there were no cheers, no parades, no celebrations for them. Only blank stares, averted gazes, a collective turning away from the inconvenient truth of war, the messy, broken aftermath.

Now, every April, the parade marched. He watched from his porch, a silent sentinel, as the younger generations, oblivious and bright-eyed, waved their flags and cheered. He saw his comrades, the few remaining, their steps faltering, their backs bowed, marching in a phantom parade, a ritual of remembrance that felt increasingly hollow.

Glory. What glory was there in mud and blood, in screams and death? What glory was there in losing everything, in being broken and forgotten? The young people didn’t understand.

And he asked himself the same question, every year, as the parade passed, as the band played that cursed tune. What were they marching for? For a memory that was fading, for a sacrifice that felt increasingly meaningless, for a war that had stolen everything and given nothing in return.

The band played Waltzing Matilda. The music swelled, momentarily drowning out the chirping of birds, the gentle rustle of autumn leaves. But even as the music filled the air, it felt thin, brittle, like a ghost of a song. He watched the parade, bright flags, and cheerful faces, and felt a chilling emptiness. The horror wasn’t the memory of the battlefield, not anymore. The horror was the slow, inexorable fading, the forgetting. The horror was the realization that someday, the music would stop, the parades would cease, and there would be no one left to remember the lambs of Suvla Bay, butchered and forgotten. And only the silence would remain, a vast, echoing silence, broken only by the lonely whisper of the wind, carrying the ghost of a song, a song of a Matilda that no one would waltz with anymore.

The chipped porcelain gnome in Mildred’s Garden had seen things. Indeed, more stuff than your average garden gnome and more than any gnome should rightfully witness in a seemingly quiet suburban cul-de-sac. Mildred, and her green-thumbed soul, had positioned him perfectly, a silent, stolid observer perched amongst the petunias, facing directly into number 14, the house of drama, specifically the dwelling of one Rex Hawthorne and his… shall we say, ‘companion’ of the moment, a rather lovely, if slightly overwrought, woman named Clara.

Rex, Gnomey (as Mildred affectionately – and slightly ironically considering his expression – called him) had observed, was a piece of work. A theatrical masterpiece, if the play were a particularly dark and twisted comedy staged in the living room of emotional wreckage. Gnomey had first caught wind of the Rex and Clara saga a few weeks back, the summer breeze carrying snippets of Clara’s tearful voice across the manicured lawns.

“…and then, my therapist said… it was incredibly difficult for me…” Clara had wailed, her words punctuated by dramatic sobs rivalling a Shakespearean tragedy. Gnomey, despite being inanimate clay, could practically feel the emotional weight Clara was laying down.

Rex, however, had responded with a performance of his own. Gnomey, strategically, had a clear view through the open patio doors. Rex had placed a hand – a very concerned hand – on Clara’s trembling shoulder. His brow furrowed, his eyes widened with theatrical empathy. He nodded, listened, and offered a tissue from a pristine, suspiciously unused box. “Oh, Clara, darling,” he’d murmured, his voice a soothing balm, “That sounds… devastating. Truly.”

Gnomey, in his silent wisdom, knew bullshit when he saw it bloom. And this, my friends, was a prize-winning bouquet. He’d seen that same “devastated” expression on Rex’s face when he’d “comforted” poor Brenda after discovering her prize-winning Labrador had a mild indigestion. Rex, it seemed, had a boundless capacity for faux empathy, a bottomless well of counterfeit concern.

The truth, as Gnomey suspected and later confirmed through snippets carried on the breeze – Rex’s phone conversations conducted loudly in the garden, presumably for maximum neighbourhood impact – was far less noble. “Honestly, Mark, it’s gold! The melodrama!” Rex had chuckled into his phone one sunny afternoon, oblivious to Gnomey’s silent scrutiny. “She’s laying it all out, trauma buffet, and I’m just gobbling it up. It’s better than Netflix!”

Gnomey would have put on a masterclass in ocular gymnastics if he could have rolled his eyes. He’d witnessed Rex’s ‘magic’ up close. It was, as the poem Mildred sometimes hummed described it, “Sleight of hand, smoke ‘n mirrors, manipulation.” Rex was a master illusionist of emotions, conjuring feelings in Clara – and probably himself, for dramatic effect – out of thin air and insecurity.

Clara, wearing her purple and green cotton socks, was smitten. Gnomey had seen the initial glow and the adoration in her eyes as Rex presented his carefully crafted “mask.” He was charming, attentive, and understanding. He listened – or at least, appeared to listen – to her deepest fears and vulnerabilities, nodding sagely as she confessed her anxieties about her career, weight, and questionable taste in reality TV. Rex absorbed it all, filing it away in his mental Rolodex of Clara’s insecurities, ready to weaponize them immediately.

“C’mon, babe, this is fate!” Rex had declared loud enough for Gnomey to hear over the rustling rose bushes one evening. Clara had questioned his sudden, extravagant declaration of love after only three weeks. Gnomey had to hand it to Rex; the audacity was breathtaking. He was marinating Clara in her vulnerabilities, seasoning her with declarations of destiny, and serving her a dish of pure, unadulterated manipulation.

The cracks, however, were starting to show. Gnomey had witnessed the shift in Clara’s demeanour. The initial sparkle dimmed, replaced by a furrowed brow and a hesitant air. She was starting to see the strings, the faint lines of manipulation beneath Rex’s smooth performance.

One particularly blustery Tuesday, the drama reached a new crescendo. Gnomey could hear raised voices from within number 14, carried on the wind that rattled his porcelain hat. “You’re doing it again, Rex!” Clara’s voice, sharp and strained, cut through the air. “You’re twisting my words! You’re making me feel like I’m crazy!”

Rex’s response was perfectly calibrated, a masterclass in gaslighting. “Clara, darling, what are you talking about?” Though still audible, his voice was now laced with wounded innocence, a masterful shift from lover to victim. “You’re just tired, you’re stressed. You’re not thinking clearly. Is this about your ex again? Darling, you’re starting to sound just like him. Don’t you think maybe…your mind’s just hazy?”

Gnomey almost choked on a stray ladybug. “Hazy?” That was rich coming from the king of obfuscation. Clara, predictably, faltered. Gnomey could practically see the self-doubt creeping in, the insidious tendrils of Rex’s gaslighting wrapping around her intuition. She was on a “blaming-me mission,” just as Rex intended, questioning her reality and sanity.

Rex, Gnomey knew, was baiting her, pushing her towards the edge, all for his twisted amusement. He wasn’t interested in empathy, in genuine connection. He was a puppeteer, and Clara was a fetching, if increasingly distressed, marionette. “Why pay for entertainment, when this is free?” Gnomey could almost hear Rex thinking, relishing the drama, the escalating conflict.

The arguments became more frequent, more heated. Gnomey observed Clara’s desperate attempts to seek confirmation, to fight for some semblance of truth in the swirling vortex of Rex’s manipulation. She wanted him to admit it, to acknowledge the game he was playing. But Rex, true to form, never confessed, never admitted, never conceded an inch of ground. He deflected, he denied, he doubled down on the gaslighting, pushing Clara to the brink, then, just as she teetered on the precipice of walking away, he’d pull her back in with a sudden surge of faux-affection, a carefully timed “I love you,” delivered with just the right amount of dramatic sincerity.

Mind games, Gnomey mused, were indeed Rex’s favorite sin. He was the Joker of this particular love story, and Clara, poor and bewildered, was being cast in the role of Harley, willingly or not. Gnomey, in his years of silent observation, had seen this play out before. The only way Clara would “win,” as the poem suggested, was to walk away. But Gnomey, being a realist, especially after witnessing Clara’s increasingly desperate attempts to salvage something tangible from this toxic farce, doubted she would. She was, Gnomey suspected, already too deeply invested in the “disguise” Rex had worn at the start, the charming, attentive facade that had lured her in. She was in love with a phantom, a carefully constructed illusion.

The poem’s final line echoed in Gnomey’s ceramic brain: “But you know I love you…” Gnomey snorted, a silent, gnome-like snort. Love? Rex didn’t know the meaning of the word. He loved the drama, the control, the twisted entertainment of it all. Love for Rex was just another prop in his elaborate, self-serving performance, another layer in the mask he wore, a mask that Clara, love her heart, seemed destined to keep trying to understand, even as it slowly, indeed, choked the life out of her spirit, right there under the watchful, utterly unsurprised, gaze of a chipped porcelain garden gnome.