The rest of the men didn’t talk this way to the governor and Caleb supposed that he would hesitate too, if not for Brendan Cahill and the way the governor looked at him, knowing, ashamed. If he had done his job correctly there’d be none of this pain and misery. Blaming others, blaming himself. He looked skyward, fed up with his mind. He wanted to take his brain out of his skull and make it work better. He felt defective all the way to his core.

Fed up, too, with flagellating himself. Wished he was dead, truth be told. Done with the guilt and the shame. Even that felt selfish. Feeling guilty about being mad about feeling guilty. A twisted thing, his mind. Felt like the more he burrowed into it, the more complex and disjointed his thoughts became.

The governor raised his arms and said, ‘Now, you lot remember why you’re doing this.’

‘Because you’re making us?’ a bloke beside him said.

‘You want to go back in?’ The governor shifted his feet, crunching gravel. ‘We’re doing this for charity. We’ve already made over five hundred bucks.’

‘Where does the money go?’ another prisoner asked.

‘It goes towards testicular cancer research,’ the governor said, prompting laughter, blokes grabbing themselves.

Caleb said quietly, ‘Bet it goes into your bloody pocket.’

If the governor heard this he ignored it. ‘So look happy. Wave at people as they pass. Alright? You lot with the sign, hold it up higher. Like this.’ He stepped forwards, indicating the desired height. ‘Alright? We ready? The front car will follow alongside you, so just match its pace.’

Grumbles. The governor started walking and the men with the sign set off behind him, and a moment later came the rest of the prisoners, the car with the two guards in it beside them. Shuffling like a chain gang of old. Minimum security meant they were all trusted to stay together. The penalty for desertion was longer confinement. This threat alone kept most of the men metaphorically leashed.

The sun rose higher up the sky and the mountains beneath it seemed to implode with new light. The men kept on, herded together like a mob of sheep. They passed some actual sheep on their right, content with their dew-covered grass, the newly shorn fleeces like hunks of trees, like somebody had been at them with a chisel. Caleb crunched over the bitumen and rock, his shirt warmed by the sun, the breeze on his arm hair, and he felt alive. He smiled at the sheep as he passed.

Soon the men holding the sign grew weary and passed it off to others behind. A car approached with its headlights still on, despite the sun, and honked its horn as it flew by. The prisoners cheered, pumping their fists like they were at a footy game and the Demons were up.

They kept walking and the sun kept rising, hard to look at now. A series of cars passed them, and then Caleb saw a familiar maroon car slow down in front of them and pull over. His mother’s car. The governor motioned the prisoners to halt and walked over to the car. The guard car beside them sat idling. Caleb watched from the back of the group as his father got out of the car and stood with one arm on the roof.