The morning light over Australia was not soft—it was fierce, unapologetic, and dazzling. The group had grown used to the rhythm of life beneath the endless skies of the southern hemisphere, but sometimes the brightness itself felt like a weight, forcing them to confront the truths they’d been trying to avoid.
Amara walked barefoot along the warm wooden boards of the coastal jetty in Byron Bay, her hair tangled from the salty breeze. The Pacific stretched before her, vast and untamed, as if it carried secrets from every forgotten shore. Behind her, Nathan called out, his voice carrying the cheer of someone trying to keep the group stitched together.
“Coffee run? You know I won’t survive another morning without it!”
Their two friends—Leah and Daniel—were sitting cross-legged on the sand, sketching shapes into the beach. From a distance, they looked peaceful, but Amara could sense the undercurrent: the silence that wasn’t restful, the kind that pressed on them all.
Life in Australia had been meant to be a new chapter, a chance to escape the tangled complications back home. The wide landscapes, the vast distances between towns, the freedom of open roads—they had believed it would heal them. Yet, as they traveled from the coast to the sunburnt outback, each step seemed to bring unspoken feelings closer to the surface.
At the little café by the shore, where surfboards leaned lazily against the wall, the four of them took their usual table. The café owner, an elderly woman with silver hair tied in a scarf, greeted them with the warmth of someone who had seen countless travelers pass through.
“You lot look like the ocean hasn’t given you answers yet,” she said with a knowing smile.
Her words hung in the air. Amara sipped her flat white, gazing at Nathan. He laughed politely at the woman’s comment, but his eyes darted toward Daniel, just for a moment—quick, sharp, almost guilty.
Australia was supposed to give them clarity. Instead, it was giving them mirrors.
The journey inland was meant to be simple. They had rented a faded campervan from a small-town garage in Ballina, the kind that rattled on gravel roads but felt like freedom once the highway stretched open. The radio played a mix of country ballads and Indigenous voices singing about land and time, songs older than memory.
Nathan drove, knuckles tight on the steering wheel, while Amara leaned against the window, the red dust blurring past. Leah sat quietly with her journal, sketching gum trees as if the act of drawing them could anchor her to the present. Daniel, restless, tapped his fingers against the seat, the rhythm betraying his unease.
By the time they reached Broken Hill, the air had shifted. The town’s mining history clung to the stones, its pubs and art galleries whispering stories of resilience and despair. They found themselves in a rented cabin just outside town, the heat pressing against the thin walls, cicadas screaming from the trees.
That evening, while Leah and Daniel explored the streets, Amara and Nathan stayed behind. The silence between them wasn’t new—it had followed them from the coast—but in the cramped cabin it became unbearable.
“You’ve been different,” Amara finally said, her voice low. “Since Sydney. Since… everything.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened. He didn’t meet her gaze. “You’re imagining it.”
But she wasn’t. She had seen the way his eyes lingered on Daniel, the way their laughter carried something unspoken, dangerous, tender. She had felt the distance growing—not just between her and Nathan, but between all of them.
Later that night, Leah returned with Daniel, flushed from the heat and the wine they had shared in a local bar. Their laughter filled the cabin, but Amara noticed how Daniel’s smile faltered when Nathan looked at him too long, as if the weight of an unvoiced truth was pulling him under.
The four of them sat around a small table, eating takeaway fish and chips. The smell of vinegar hung in the air. Leah scribbled something in her journal, shielding the page, while Nathan stared into his drink. Amara felt the moment shift—the fragile balance of friendship tipping toward something more fragile, more dangerous.
Australia, with all its open spaces, was closing in on them.
The next day, the group wandered through the dry streets of Broken Hill, where murals decorated walls and the scent of iron still lingered from the mines. A crowd had gathered near a shaded square, where a local cultural event was taking place—paintings, music, and stories being shared by the region’s Barkindji people.
Drawn in, the four friends stood quietly, watching. On a small stage, an elder spoke in a slow, deliberate rhythm. His name was Marra, his voice deep like the red earth beneath their feet.
Leah whispered, “He’s telling a story. Listen.”
The crowd hushed as Marra began a tale not of dreams, but of their absence.
The Dreamless Story
“There was once a village by a river,” Marra said, eyes sweeping across the crowd. “The people worked hard, fishing, farming, surviving. But one year, the river dried. The trees gave no shade, the nights gave no rest. And worst of all, the people stopped dreaming.
No visions came to them in sleep. No songs arrived with the stars. They woke each morning, tired but empty. Without dreams, they forgot what it meant to hope, to love, to remember who they were.
The young tried to fix the river with stones and clay, but it cracked again. The elders prayed, but silence answered. And so, the village carried on without dreams, each day heavier than the last.
One night, a boy asked his mother, ‘When will our dreams return?’
She held him close and whispered, ‘Perhaps never. But we must live anyway.’”
The story ended not with resolution but with silence, as if the weight of it pressed on every listener’s chest.
Amara shivered. Daniel looked away. Nathan, for once, seemed to understand something without needing words.
Leah quickly scribbled in her journal, capturing every sentence, every pause. But as she wrote, she realized Marra’s story wasn’t about an ancient village. It was about them—about their own little circle of friends, their laughter masking the emptiness growing between them.
When the event ended, Marra passed by. His eyes lingered on the group. “You carry a river inside you,” he said softly. “Don’t let it dry.” Then he walked away, leaving them with questions they couldn’t yet answer.
That night, back in their cabin, silence returned. The four of them lay awake in separate corners, unable to dream.
The road out of Broken Hill stretched like a scar across the desert, the horizon trembling in the heat. Their campervan rattled forward, carrying more than just bodies—it carried secrets heavy enough to bend steel.
Amara felt them pressing in. She tried to distract herself, watching the kangaroos dart across the fields and the crows circling high above. But the silence in the van was louder than the engine.
By late afternoon, they stopped at a roadside lookout, where the land fell away into a vast plain of red and gold. The air smelled of dust and eucalyptus, the kind of dry silence that seemed to demand truth.
Daniel leaned against the railing, the sun catching in his hair. Nathan stood a few feet away, pretending to study the map. Leah, sensing the tension, quietly wandered off with her camera, leaving Amara between them.
She turned to Nathan. “Enough,” she said softly. “I need to know what’s going on.”
His face was hard, but his eyes betrayed him. “There’s nothing.”
Daniel laughed bitterly, not looking at either of them. “There’s always something. You just don’t say it.”
Amara’s chest tightened. “So I was right. All this distance, all this silence—it wasn’t in my head.”
Nathan finally met her gaze, but he said nothing. The truth sat there, unspoken but undeniable, carried in the way his eyes lingered too long on Daniel, in the way Daniel refused to meet hers.
For a moment, no one moved. The hot wind swept across them, carrying the echo of Marra’s dreamless story. A river drying inside them, cracking at the edges.
Leah returned then, cheerful but cautious, her camera slung around her neck. She glanced at their faces, reading the storm she hadn’t been present for. “What happened?” she asked, but no one answered.
The four of them stood together at the edge of the lookout, staring out at the endless Australian sky. The land stretched wide and merciless, offering no answers, no comfort. Just silence.
The issue hung between them, unresolved.
And in that silence, the heart of their journey changed.
