ABSTRACT
It’s early on a Thursday afternoon and I’m loitering in a corner of the National Museum of Australia’s Landmarks gallery. I could be, if anybody asked, en route to a meeting elsewhere in the building, but to tell the truth I’ve walked down to the exhibition from my office to spend time with the displays. It’s restful to stand in the still, slightly dim light and imagine other lives. I stop towards the end of one case and study the objects: a weathered, termite-mined fence post, a pair of opera glasses, a silver box, and a bundle of spiky brown seeds. I think of how it would feel to touch the striated surface of the wooden post, and notice that some of the seeds have slipped off their plinth on to the floor of the case.
