Katelin Farnsworth

I don’t regret it, even though everyone tells me I should. But I can’t suddenly subscribe to their way of thinking, even if I know they’re right. 

Everyone has their opinions. They call it a cult instead of a community and they throw that word around as though it means something. And yeah, maybe it does, but not to me. Because that cult was my home. Green paddocks and tall trees and tiny yellow daisies. Tractors for the men. Marigold gloves and apricot-coloured aprons for the women. Sunlight bouncing down. We all wore straw hats, with bright orange bands around them. The women weren’t allowed to look at the men unless the men looked first. Eyes always flitting about. Look to the ground,  look to the ground, I would whisper to myself, steering the words to sit under my breath, rather than look up and make unlawful eye contact. We were afraid all the time, but it didn’t feel like fear, not really. You get used to having nothing quickly. The rules begin to make sense and then they stop looking like rules. Life is lived for him.  

Inside, our house was yellow. Cushions and deep breaths and cups of herbal tea and moonlit walks and swinging smiles. The women wore long golden dresses and one of my jobs was to wash them every day in the big steel laundry basin, scrubbing at non-existent stains. Yellow was also the colour when I was down on my hands and knees, scrubbing at the toilet bowl. Yes, yellow was the colour of my bruised knees, of the piss I cleaned off the floor. But it was also the colour of spoonfuls of honey on wheat bread in the mornings. And of course, yellow, bright rich golden yellow, was the feeling I felt when he smiled at me, when I brought him his black coffee and papers in the mornings, when he praised me for being such a good girl. To me, everything was yellow, even when it wasn’t, even when the rooms were red-hot and everything was on fire, scarlet, bleeding out. 

We had lessons outside, in the big, converted shed. Sitting around long tables, big pads of paper in front us. Writing down what he said, his words of wisdom, advice, and insights.  Looking back, I can see that none of it was worth anything. But at the time, his words pierced my soul. Even after everything came apart, his words still gripped me. Even after the police pulled up in their blue and white squad cars, sirens flashing. Because he used to speak about  so much; he had ideas on everything; he talked about cleansing the soul and Cleaning our insides, getting rid of parasites and Drones. I remember his words, but I also remember other things too.  

Like early morning meditation in the purple cornfields, sunlight shooting onto us. Almost dancing, twisting under the blue sky.  

Or walking through lavender fields, feeling light, so feminine, lithe.  

Or picking rosy, red apples from great big trees.  

Before everything got really bad.  

I remember making soup in the kitchen, slicing vegetables – red onions, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes. The smell of oil and garlic wafting through the air. Sometimes I’d put the radio on and sway to whatever was playing, country western or bluegrass, sometimes even sparkly pop. Stars in my eyes, glittery. We were making the world a better place. Helping people.

Until we weren’t.  

My world, unravelling. Handcuffs and tiny interrogation rooms and milky tea in paper cups that I could never keep down and tears, so many tears that I thought I couldn’t breathe. And yeah, maybe I didn’t want to breathe anymore if I couldn’t breathe without him. Because he was gone. They took him away, in more ways than one.  

Shots fired.  

Deep silence. Darkness. And then so much light, harsh early morning light.  

Even though they eventually said I was a victim, that I was safe now, I didn’t feel like a  victim, and I certainly didn’t feel safe.  

My new home was weird. It smelt like nothing, and the walls were so white and even though I was allowed to watch television and was allowed to go out whenever I wanted and even though I didn’t have to cook for hundreds of people and I no longer had to report to him, I still felt empty. I missed my old life, even though I knew I wasn’t meant to. And nobody tells  you what to do with this feeling, how to untangle this grief, how to push through it: nobody tells you anything at all, and yet you’re meant to be happy when they take everything away  from you. I loved him in every way I knew how to and apparently that love wasn’t enough;  that love was vile and corrupt and wrong, but I have to ask: can love ever be wrong?  

See, my head is all a mess, in pieces, ratty and unthreaded. I’m looking for answers that don’t exist, answers that are never going to make their way over to me. But still, I know what I know, and I loved him, and I was happy even when I wasn’t, and it’s going to take some time  – a lot of time – to rebuild, to find myself again, to be happy in a world where he isn’t.

ABOUT KATELIN FARNSWORTH

Katelin Farnsworth lives in lutruwita (Tasmania) with her husband. Her writing has appeared in various places (The Saturday Paper, The Age, Overland, The Slow Canoe, Lip Mag, Tincture Journal, The Sydney Morning Herald, WritersBloc, Award Winning Australian Writing, and SBS Voices). Two of her manuscripts have been shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize in recent years and she’s currently working on a novel that she hopes to find a home for before too long. 

You can view more of her work or contact her through her website www.katelinfarnsworth.com