The Lonely Australian of the Asian Night

(Short Story, Crime, Travel, 6,500 words)

Hookers and hawkers. 

Mosques and mosquitos.

Paul has had enough of Southeast Asia.

He's only here ‘cos it's cheap. 

And he's on the run from police after leaving Australia.

No, that place wasn't much better either. 

Well, it was when he was young. When his life was full of promise. An up-and-coming boxer. And he had friends. And fun.

Then a bit of bad luck later and he found himself on the run in outback Australia.

Paranoid. Hiding from shadows.

The heat. The dust. The sweat.

Next stop, southeast Asia.

BOOK TRAILER

AUTHOR 2 CAMERA

He was never the worrying type, but the worry started to creep into his mind when he was on the run in Australia. It was there that the shadow formed. He wanted to know what or who was over his shoulder and the more he looked the more he worried he would see something. But he never did. When he was on the run, it was the first time he had travelled anywhere in Australia. Out there, there were no rules; not out on the desert road, not out under the desert night, not in what felt to him like red-neck towns and bars where everything was really hot, yet somehow cold. Paul remembered the sweat pouring out of his forehead, making his sunglasses slip down the bridge of his nose. And he'd never felt sweat come out of his throat before. He remembered the fear in his belly and eagles circling under the searing sun. It was in the outback that he had felt alone for the first time. It was there that he felt his youth further away than it had ever been. It was there that he first felt the nothingness.