Fiction

The cull

Riding his pushy fast out of town, really upset after arguing with his best friend, Angus almost rides into a bloke with a shotgun. Watch where you’re going kid, says the large man. He’s wearing a jacket that isn’t suited to the burning hot day, a green peaked hat that looks crisp and shiny, a bandolier and shotgun broken open and crooked over his arm. I’m doing some shooting here, he says.

What are you shooting?

Corellas.

Why?

Because they’re a pest. Now scram.

Angus looks around and says, But there aren’t any signs to warn that a cull is on.

Bugger off! says the bloke. As a car passes, three corellas fly overhead and the shooter, almost in one movement, pulls up his earmuffs, snaps shut his shotgun, flicks off the safety, follows them as they make their way to the tarped open wheat bins and blasts them. The kid shrieks and throws his hands to his ears. The shooter ignores him and walks back to a fold-out chair he has set up beside a ute.

The bins are tall on one side of the road, open with the grain piled like stretched pyramids with blue tarps on the other side. Angus knows all the ins and outs as his brother worked on them for a while before going away for good. Against the low hills of the valley he thinks they look pretty cool and he loves the trains coming and going, and even the trucks. But none of that is happening today.

Angus rides back towards town and stops down the road, out of sight. He phones his dodgy mate, Taj, who lives only a few houses away and would be hearing the blasts, and who, though he is into guns and shit, also loves birds, though he keeps them in cages.

Anyway, Taj says he’ll maybe come out and maybe help.

Angus knows Taj doesn’t really care. Creeping forward on his bike, he bites his lips and tastes blood. Then there are two blams and shot falls on him and corellas tip and tilt and plunge close to where he has stopped on the roadside in a dip out of sight from the shooter.

He drops his bike and picks up a smashed corella that is warm and wet and its head flops around like it’s barely connected. Living blood from his lip spills and mixes with the corella’s dead blood.

He hears small wheels crackling along the bitumen and Taj’s sister rocks up on her skateboard. She and Angus say they can’t stand each other whenever they cross paths, but she’s there.

There’s a bloke blowing birds out of the sky over the main road, he says, looking at the ground and Taj’s sister’s bare feet on the skateboard. He wants to ask how her feet can stand the heat of the road, the roughness of the asphalt, how they don’t get torn to shreds as she hurtles along.

Arsehole, she says, but he’s not sure who she means. Have you rung the ranger?

Angus shakes his head. His phone is out of charge.

As she rings there are another two blasts. Come on, she says, as she gets put on hold... Yeah, hello... I’m down near the wheat bins and there’s some guy blowing corellas away with a shotgun. What do you mean you won’t come if there’s a gun involved? Ring the cops? Come off it.

What’s going on?

Gotta ring the cops. But let’s get closer and take a look. She pushes off down the rough road, clattering along, announcing
her arrival. He wheels his bike cautiously behind her.

By the time he gets over the rise, she is arguing with the shooter. What the fuck are you doing, mate? I don’t give a fuck if you’ve got permission to shoot the birds, you can’t fucking well shoot them in the middle of the road... it’s fucking dangerous. You could shoot my little friend standing up there.

Her little friend. Him. Angus. She’s only a year or two older than him. He’s almost as tall as her.

And the birds shouldn’t be shot off the road either, she says.

He is awe-struck at the way she just erupts. He’s never heard her swear before.

Who are you calling a dirty-mouthed little whore! You can’t call me that, mate. You trying to kill two birds with one stone, are ya? Your fucking gun is brighter than you. And I can tell you, we’re going to call the cops and you can argue with them, and if a female officer turns up, you can speak your misogynist shit to her and see how it goes down.

The whole time as he’s badmouthing her, the shooter is scanning the sky for corellas. Angus thinks that it’s just a matter of time before the bloke snaps that gun shut, cocks, swings and fires at Taj’s sister. Angus calls to her, frantic, Come back, it’s not safe. She takes no notice. So he screams and falls to the ground.

The shooter just ignores him but she skates slowly back and says, Nobody likes it when someone takes a fall in the game.

It’s not a game, he says through tears, that bastard is murdering the birds and he’s enjoying it.

She ruffles his hair and says, Yeah, I know Angus... he’s a wanker and the birds are better than him. We’ll say a prayer for them and ring the cops, eh.

She rings and is put on hold. No more birds fly. There are 10 dead on the ground and the shooter props his gun, ignoring the kids, as another car crawls slowly past without comment. The man walks out and starts booting the corpses to the side of the road, feathers sticking to his boot. Blood and feathers.

And then she’s through to the cops and is saying to the cop on duty or operator or whoever it is, What do you mean would I “describe the guy as fair, swarthy or dark”? What’s his colour got to do with it? He’s got a shotgun and he’s blowing birds away! And then Taj’s sister hangs up and starts to slowly skate back towards her house and Angus follows on his bike.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on May 17, 2025 as "The cull".

For almost a decade, The Saturday Paper has published Australia’s leading writers and thinkers. We have pursued stories that are ignored elsewhere, covering them with sensitivity and depth. We have done this on refugee policy, on government integrity, on robo-debt, on aged care, on climate change, on the pandemic.

All our journalism is fiercely independent. It relies on the support of readers. By subscribing to The Saturday Paper, you are ensuring that we can continue to produce essential, issue-defining coverage, to dig out stories that take time, to doggedly hold to account politicians and the political class.

There are very few titles that have the freedom and the space to produce journalism like this. In a country with a concentration of media ownership unlike anything else in the world, it is vitally important. Your subscription helps make it possible.

Send this article to a friend for free.