by Grace Davidson-Lynch

The silence between us was a comfortable one, familiar and even. Then Yaz wrinkled her nose as the hot spring wind pushed into us. “It actually stinks,” she said.

“Yeah, right?” Cass squeaked, walking double-time to keep up. “Like rotten egg shits.”

Memorial Park appeared on our left behind a row of new trees. The bright leaves gave no shade yet, just a neat outline of a square of grass under the canopy of towers. The memorial itself was more impressive – 30 sculpted smiling sandstone children, weeping now from the rains, hand in hand in a still, looping dance of peace. Or something.

Behind the fence was another school group, private boys in blue and white blazers. A gangly looking one was bent over laughing as his stocky mate humped behind one of the sandstone girls. I couldn’t look.

The museum was near the water, another concrete block on the harbour. No one hung around there usually because the summer stink was unbearable. That day, the water was an expanse of silver, blistering and rippling.

At the end of Endeavour Road, Ms Ashton stopped. I could see my face in the reflection of her red sunglasses, sweat spritzed on her brow. “No funny business today. Got it?”

We nodded and shuffled in. The foyer was bright and the white floors shone. Beyond the front desk I could see a darker corridor snaking away into shrouded museum darkness. I pulled my jumper over my hands 

Ms Ashton stopped us before the entrance. Her sunglasses were on her head now.

“No phones, no tablets. If I catch any of you doing anything stupid in there,” she growled, “it’s a suspension.”

On the floor of the first hall was a huge map, glowing in the dark. Wriggling street lines stopped at a blue waterfront. Mum once showed me pictures of her school friends jumping into impossible sapphire ocean pools. Above the map hung a shiny plastic ball, suspended from the ceiling, looming like an overripe orange.

There was no one else except an old couple. Cass pointed at the edge of the map, the light glowing in her cheeks.

“My Pa lived there,” she breathed. Eryn bent down, her long, ashy hair hanging. Sometimes I hated her.

“Was he there?” she asked. Cass shook her head.

“He was overseas. Mum was in school.” 

Everyone’s mums were in school that day. The good silence held it for us.

We shuffled through into a larger hall, still dark and shadowed, but with full glass display cabinets.

A melted smartphone.

A burned overcoat.

A crumpled bicycle.

Everything was brown, the colour of the harbour on a sunny day.

I saw the old couple again. The man was propped up by a walking frame. The girls were off giggling, so I pulled out my notebook and marched towards the closest cabinet. 

Inside was a watch. Leather band, orange clockface, brown glass covering the sticks. The long one at 9, the short one almost at 10. The card read that the blast stopped the watch’s internal mechanisms at the time of impact.

I wrote in my notebook: What time was the bomb dropped?

I looked around for the girls, but the class was gone. The only people left were the old couple and Ms Ashton. They were whispering.

Ms Ashton hated everyone. She made Year 7s cry. But there she was, bent down to hear the old man talking, nodding, her hand on his shoulder. His voice crackled in his chest when he spoke. “It feels like a different world now.”

“It is,” Ms Ashton replied. “They have no idea.” She turned around, gesturing at the empty room, and spotted me. Her face was shining with tears. 

“Ria!” she said, surprised. Her eyes scanned the space behind me and landed on me again. The old couple just stared. Then she looked at me like I knew what to do. She pulled a crumpled tissue from her pocket and wiped her face. “Lovely speaking with you,” she said to the couple.

As she approached, her brow furrowed again. It was a relief. “Where’d the others get off to?”

The wrong words came out. “Are you okay, Ms?”

A silence fell – and the white-hot flash of embarrassment.

“Yep,” she said, clearing her throat. “Sorry, just…”

“It’s okay,” I heard myself whisper.

I saw Nan cry once, on the 50th anniversary. She’d shown me the letter from the government, an invitation to the Memorial opening. Said she’d never go back to the city as long as she lived. It was only one more year after that.

“Did you have any questions?” Ms Ashton asked, as if my assignment mattered at all.

I answered like it did. “What time did the bomb go off?”

“Quarter to 10,” she said automatically, hardness back in her eyes. 

Silence again. I spoke to break it. “Where were you?”

“School.” Her face was glassy, familiar. The way Mum talked about her school friends. Nan on the anniversary. This was an opening, I knew, for forbidden questions.

“What was it like?” 

She was still for a moment, suspended, looming. Then she let out a sudden sob, an ugly surge that stops clocks and tastes of vomit. The white museum lights winked off the glass walls, covering rows and rows of things people used to own. Melted, broken, fused, brown, brown, brown. 

Eryn was in the hallway. Her tiny body held in a frame of light. I think she said my name.

My cheeks were wet and I was shaking, but I reached for her. Ms Ashton was sandstone like the girls in the park, melting under the red sun. Her skin felt hot, brown glass covering her face, panic rocketing through her form. Shaking foundation stripped bare. Sobbing so violently that she wasn’t making noises anymore.

Eryn didn’t understand it, her face white with horror, but that was the first time I did.

The silence of nothing left to say.

Grace Davidson-Lynch is a writer based in Sydney, Australia. She has written essays and non-fiction pieces for arts publications including Booker Magazine and Orangutan, as well as her own Substack. Grace also writes for the theatre, and her play “Hydrarchos” was featured in the NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) Festival of Emerging Artists and the Sydney Fringe Festival in 2022. In 2024, Grace was selected for the ATYP (Australian Theatre for Young People) National Studio program. Grace works as a dramaturg and a writing/English tutor.