The Ice Age

by Kirsten Reed

  I passed a wall of graffiti that said:

  I am avenging absences

  I AM AVENGING ABSENCES

  I need someone as wounded as myself

  I’m not sure how I came to be here, alone and insignificant. Most people my age walk around in gaggles of twittering friends. Or so it seems. I don’t even want that. Can’t remember if I ever had it. Or how I came to be by myself. I guess there is no one reason. It’s a collection of things.

  I waited on the corner of Bond Street, on the Bowery, for a truck to pass. It spluttered out smoke. It looked like the trail of its breath on a cold day. Right then it didn’t seem to matter if I waited for this big animated truck to pass, or walked in front of it. I do just feel like wandering out into the traffic, there’s no denying that. Sometimes I get so tired of all the stuff cluttering up my brain, it’s a relief to feel I could be reduced to so many pounds of raw, jiggling flesh that could just go thud and stop.

  Alphabet City was just as Gunther and I had left it. Full of junkies, walking with their sinking, measured steps, as if they were leaving tracks in the snow. So peaceful, so divine. I wanted to follow one and learn his secret.

  I sent another message to Gunther. ‘Gunther,’ I thought, ‘it’s not what you’ve got for me, it’s what I’ve got for you.’ Because I have all this love left over, and nowhere to put it.

  And he decided not to bite me after all. Silly Gunther. Pointless Gunther. Now I’ll just have to find someone who will.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank everyone at Text Publishing, for their guidance, support and encouragement throughout the process of publishing my first book. For sharing the joy and nervous anticipation inherent in this process, Krissy Kneen. The Ice Age was chosen for the Pathways to Publication Masterclass at Varuna, The Writers’ House. I’m grateful to everyone I encountered there, including my fellow authors; most notably Angela Meyer, for her undying enthusiasm for new writing, and Amy Jackson, for tolerating a frequently distracted writing partner, and for nudging The Ice Age in the direction of Text Publishing! Thanks of course to Peter Bishop, for everything he does for emerging writers, and for being the first person to love this book, and make me feel like an author.

  Table of Contents

  COVER PAGE

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  DEDICATION

  BEGING READING