Herdenmord - ONC2021

Family

When my parents went missing (presumed dead), my older sister, Sam, told me she wasn't moving back home. She'd moved interstate as soon as she finished her Naturopathy diploma and was now living with her surfer-turned-chef boyfriend. Neither of them had any inclination to move from the sunshine and surf of the northern New South Wales beaches to the dry outer suburbs of Melbourne.

Uncle Bevis shook his greying head and told me she was selfish, but I didn't mind. Sam and I never got along when we lived together anyway. She thought I was too 'unkempt' and kept hassling me to wear more makeup and trendier clothes. I couldn't see anything wrong with my freckles or jeans and trainers. And she spent too long in the bathroom! I would've gone mad, putting up with that again.

Uncle Bevis said I could move in with his family, but I didn't want to. I liked being in my parent's house. It was all I had left of them. I didn't know if they were alive, but being able to live in their house and touch their things made them feel close somehow. Like they were going to walk in any minute and tell me off for dumping Uni.

I hadn't been back to Uni since they were reported missing. After the first month, when it looked and felt like I'd never go back, Quan's parents gave me a part-time job at their restaurant. I spent three nights a week carrying trays of steaming Pho and egg noodle soup, taking orders and clearing tables, and that was enough to keep me feeling useful. Like I was doing something. It would've been too easy to stay home and never do anything again.

Two months later, Dimi moved out of her share house and into Sam's old room. It was further away from Uni than her old place, but she said the pros outweighed the cons. No-one stole her food, she was living with someone she actually liked, and on the nights I worked there was a good chance we'd score leftovers. I had to agree: Pho three times a week was a massive perk.

We took turns cooking the other nights, unless Dimi's mum visited and left us with an enormous moussaka. One slice of that and I understood why Dimi's housemates stole her food.

Life was as good as it could be—if I never watched the herdenmord flashbacks they kept playing on the news. If I pretended Mum and Dad were on their way home. If I didn't pay attention to the continual crawling under my skin. If Quan wasn't so angry all the time.

If I didn't look at the last message Mum sent me.

Despite everything, or maybe because of everything, the old high school crew still hung out on weekends. Whenever I felt like curling under my covers and never getting up again, one of them was there to sit on the bed and talk until I decided it was less hassle to get up. I don't really know what I would've done without them. They'd all lost people themselves, but they stuck by me like family.

Quan visited least. He was in the last year of a plumbing apprenticeship. He'd hated school and just wanted a job that would be busy and pay well. His apprenticeship had been busy right from the start, and now it was beginning to pay well, too. He was the only one of us who was fully employed. I couldn't help thinking his dropping out of school in Year Ten was the right decision.

Aaden was studying to be an emergency nurse, just like his amazing mum. Jamie thought he'd end up becoming a doctor, but I wasn't so sure. Aaden was the kind of guy who knew what he wanted and was happy when he got it. I wished I was more like him.

I'd been studying writing and literature, majoring in editing. I'd wanted to work for a publisher, in any capacity. I was kind of obsessed with getting great marks so I could edit the university lit journal in my final year and prove how dedicated I was to all my prospective employers. It didn't seem important now, except for meeting Dimi.

She was in my classical lit class, or 'stale-pale-male-tales' as she called it. She was still going to uni. They'd moved on to contemporary literature. She tried to get me excited about it, but when I stole a look at her theory readings, the authors seemed completely removed from reality. I let the papers slip from my hands like empty wrappers.