Split Focus

“Hope is easy when it’s buried in the soil. It’s holding up canvas in the wind that tests you.”

As the ute’s wheels spun against the dirt, the dry earth responded in thick, curling plumes. I stopped, caught by the motion, watching the dust rise like spirits roused from their slumber. It swirled into the late light, golden and harsh, performing a gritty ballet that momentarily stole all focus. Each spiral seemed to etch the moment into the landscape—chaos meeting sunlight, the unmistakable shape of departure.

Jamie’s retreating stride wasn’t subtle. It thudded like a punctuation mark on an unspoken argument. His entire posture screamed frustration. There was something theatrical about it, but not for show—more a man who didn’t know how to make peace with silence. His exit left a vacancy in the air, like breath held too long. And with him went a coil of unresolved tension that didn’t dissolve—it lingered, heavy and unsaid, mixing with the dust that still danced around our ankles.

"What do we do with these plants now?" Glenda’s voice sliced cleanly through my reverie. She had a way of doing that—of walking a straight line through emotional clutter. Her tone was smooth, unhurried. Calm in a way I couldn’t quite emulate, not then. Not with the memory of that little green sprout still blooming behind my eyes.

Chris answered before I could. “We keep them safe,” he said, with a kind of solemnity that suggested he’d taken the task personally. His voice softened at the edges, protective. He moved with intent, kneeling low once more, and lowered the tiny coriander seedlings into the waiting soil with reverent care. I watched as his fingers pressed the earth in around them, firm but gentle. “The tents should give them a little shade and protection from the sun,” he added, glancing upwards as if weighing the angle of the light.

The note of hope in his voice surprised me. I hadn’t realised how much I needed to hear it until then.

I let out a slow sigh. The sound barely registered against the ambient crunch of boots and the distant hum of the idling ute engine. It felt as though the air had thickened with more than dust—it was tension, yes, but also something rawer. Expectation. Fragility. The plants were a living metaphor, rooted in nothing more than a cracked patch of alien soil, yet here we were, willing them to live like they might somehow save us all.

My eyes lingered on them—tiny green strands trembling in the still air, their resilience both touching and terrifying. We’d given them shade, a little moisture, a patch of soil that might not kill them outright. But there were no guarantees. Just like us.

"We had better finish putting it up," Glenda said, practical as ever, her voice cutting through the haze of emotion like cool water across stone. Her determination wasn’t hard-edged, though—it carried warmth, the quiet kind that kept people going. She stood with an ease I envied, brushed the dust from her trousers, and extended a hand to me.

The gesture surprised me—not because of what it was, but because of how it felt. An invitation, unspoken. Not just to stand, but to stand with her. And in a world where everything was uncertain, that kind of small solidarity meant more than I could say.

I accepted. My palm found hers, rough with grit, warm with effort. She pulled me up with a quiet strength that felt steadying. My legs ached from crouching, my hands were dirty, and the back of my neck burned warm where the sun had caught me—but somehow, I felt lighter.

My gaze shifted then, scanning for Chris. He hadn’t moved. Still crouched, his hand brushing over the disturbed soil with a kind of focus that bordered on trance. I didn’t speak—I didn’t have to. He could feel me watching. My eyes asked the question anyway: Are you coming?

He didn’t look up. His expression was unreadable, brows drawn tight, lips slightly parted as if he was half-way through a thought. Whatever he was seeing down there, it held him fast. There was something in the way he studied the ground—as though the planet itself had whispered to him and he was trying to decipher the meaning.

It was a part of him I knew well. That quiet tunnel-vision. That absolute absorption in a problem. I’d seen it before, in the garden and on field sites. It was both admirable and infuriating. He could forget hunger, time, conversation—everything—if he thought he was on the edge of understanding something.

And perhaps he was.

Still, we had a tent to finish. A roof to raise. A world to learn how to live in.

And Chris... he wasn’t quite ready to come back up for air.

Slowly, Chris rose to his feet, brushing the dust from his palms in a motion that was almost absent-minded. His silhouette, framed against the deepening hues of early afternoon, gave him the look of someone caught between two worlds—one foot still planted in the task at hand, the other already stepping into his next curiosity. With his hands resting on his hips and his gaze stretched out across the scorched horizon, he looked every bit the explorer—someone surveying untouched terrain, not a campsite still half-collapsed behind him.

"I want to see how far this soil spreads," he said, almost to himself. The words carried that telltale tone of Chris’s scientific fascination, low and far-off, like a line cast into water. There was already distance in it, a drifting away—not just physically, but mentally.

“Fine,” I said, too quickly. My shoulders lifted in a shrug that felt more like armour than indifference. I tried not to let the disappointment show—tried to keep my voice level, my posture casual. But it slipped through anyway, the way it always did with Chris. Not because I expected him to know—but because, in some deep, irrational corner of my mind, I wanted him to prioritise us over whatever lay hidden beneath the dirt.

“I'll come and find you when Glenda and I are done with the tent,” I added, the words catching slightly on their way out. A line tossed between us—me tethering myself to the task at hand, him floating off toward another. It was meant to sound neutral, pragmatic. But part of me knew it was a small, quiet plea. See what I’m holding together. Stay, just for once.

Chris’s smile was quick, broad, and infuriatingly charming. Uncomplicated gratitude radiated from it, like sunlight cutting through a cloud. He reached down and, without hesitation, scooped up a tent peg—one of ours—and started off toward the river.

I watched his back recede, his stride relaxed, purposeful, completely absorbed. I half expected him to pause, to realise what he’d taken and return the peg. But he didn’t. He just kept walking.

“Where are you going with that?” I called out, irritation flaring up like a spark. My tone was sharper than I intended, but I didn’t pull it back.

Chris stopped. The peg swung loosely from his fingers as he turned. His expression was mock-blank, eyes wide with faux innocence. “With what?” he said, voice laced with such deliberate confusion it was almost theatrical.

“You know what,” I shot back, hands moving to my hips in a stance that came too naturally. I could feel the heat behind my eyes—the kind born not of anger, but of exhaustion. My face, I was sure, said it all: Really?

Chris’s eyes twinkled, just for a second. He lifted the peg in a slow, exaggerated motion, like a schoolboy caught red-handed. “Well, I’m not going to get too far trying to dig beyond that crust with my bare hands now, am I?”

And damn it, he had a point.

The layer just beneath the surface was hard-packed and resistant. We’d seen it. Felt it. His logic was sound—rational, even—but still, I let out a sigh that carried more than a day's worth of dust and exasperation.

This was who he was. The relentless drive to investigate, to pursue the thread of curiosity wherever it led. In another time, another setting, I’d admired it. But now, surrounded by flapping canvas, half-erect tents, and the pressing need to carve some semblance of order, it felt more like a fault-line than a virtue.

He nodded once, that silent “I win” gesture he never made smug—but never tried to hide, either—and resumed his easy gait towards the river. The peg hung at his side like a tool or a talisman.

For a moment, I wanted to follow. There was a part of me, the same part that once trailed Chris through muddy fields and fog-choked valleys, that longed to leave the tent, the dust, the responsibilities. I could almost feel it—the pull of the unknown, of a mystery whispering just beyond the edge of certainty. He made it look so effortless.

But reality snapped back fast—and loud.

“Shit!” Glenda’s voice rang out behind me, raw and unfiltered.

I spun on my heel and saw her locked in a battle with the tent’s outer layer, the fabric billowing like a living thing refusing to be tamed. One corner had come free, whipping up in the wind as if mocking her efforts. Her hair, previously so composed, was now a tangled halo of grit and sweat. She looked up at me with a face somewhere between fury and helplessness.

And just like that, the choice was made.

Glenda really does need my help.

I inhaled, squared my shoulders, and stepped back into the task that, unlike the mysteries buried beneath Bixbus, wasn’t going to solve itself.