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Like chainsaws had done to the eucalypts that once reigned here, the highway sliced through the outer-western suburbs. Concrete walls cut the sight lines between the highway and the houses and gave little sense of the busy lives or the hopes of the people who lived behind them.

“I’ll have a packet of Winnie’s” Rach greeted the man who owned the shop on Hobart Street. She dropped the coins on the counter and glanced around the store. There were smashed packets of biscuits and cartons of washing powder off the shelves and spilled across the floor. The glass door fridge had been smashed and the shards glittered on the old lino. Welcome to St. Marys, she thought to herself, wondering if it had been a good idea to move back home. Their eyes locked for a moment but she looked away quickly. "Thanks." She stammered out and turned quickly toward the door, forgetting the reason she had stopped by the store in the first place. She wondered if she should call the cops, make an official report, maybe ask what the hell had been going on. But she also knew doing something like that could be bad for your health. She reached for her pocket and felt it was empty. She stopped in mid step and turned back, swearing under her breath.

Rach decided to return to the shop and pretend to buy a few more things to suss out what was going on inside. Then she saw it. A black van, across the street, with three masked men in the front. All of a sudden they saw Rach. Should she move towards the shop or run as fast as she could and forget about the incident. Hesitantly, she moved ahead closer to the door, nervously wondering //Do I check my phone and pretend I haven't seen anything, and walk away?//. She reached for her phone in her bag, doing her best to feign nonchalance, but instead shakily pulled out her Zorro-inspired mask. "Damn it" she muttered, cursing to herself and walking further into the store, entirely unsure of what to do next. "Why didn't I bloody grab my ciggies at the machine at Rooty Hill train station this morning?"

The driver leaned out to adjust the mirror as if to see her better and she realised she knew him. He was for certain Mr. Habib's son. //What the hell is he doing? What is going on//? Rach thought. She c ould very well remember the day she noticed he had six fingers on each hand; she was so distracted by it that she almost forgot what she wanted to buy. She'd never forget the look of malice that he gave her then, even though he was just a kid. She was sure the six fingered hand hanging out of the window of the van belonged to the same person, and had no clue what to do next.

That unsettling hand nearly distracted Rach from another, rather more unsettling point which slapped her suddenly in the face. Why was Mr Habib's son an actual accomplice himself, to a crime which was being committed against Mr Habib! In what world did that make sense? Perhaps he hadn't received the appropriate number of hugs from his dad, or had he gone so far as to insist that his son call him father for that extra emotional distance. Rach could feel the moral outrage swell inside her and felt it just as quickly deflate, as she imagined the hug-deprived son of Mr Habib stroking a gun with his six creepy fingers. She really needed that cigarette..

The van screamed off just as Rachael stepped through the bead curtain. Her craving for nicotine didn't out weigh her instincts of self preservation, this time. Lucky for her, because the man she'd seen behind the counter at the corner store wasn't the owner. The owner was tied up in the back of the shop. Poor Mr. Habib lay on his side, blood oozing from his temple, his hands cable-tied behind his back.

For a moment Rachael stood there, crippled by the barbaric massacre that she had just witnessed. She was unable to make sense of her surroundings. Her life flashed right before her eyes. Amidst the chaos she stood there for a split second, but what seemed like a lifetime, shaken and unable to move. Something had to be done…Was it 000 or 999? She grabbed her smokes off the counter, flicked her Disney Princess lighter and fumbled for her phone.

It only took 15 minutes before she heard the sirens, and only a couple of hours before she saw the shop again on the evening news. But it would take more than a lifetime before she'd be able to forget that scene. Violence is everywhere, no doubt about that! But what a reality! The violent shake in her hands, the heavy beat of her heart vibrating on her ribs. The adrenaline was yet to wear off.

She had to do something. She did not want to be like every other bogan from her neighbourhood. It was time she took a stand for the little people. Mr. Habib had owned that store ever since her father was a boy. Rach donned her black cape and zorro-inspired eye mask. No, that was too dramatic. She stepped out in her trackies and hoody. That way she could blend in and never be found out. She didn't want to stand out to anyone, she didn't want anyone to look at her or even take notice of her. She wanted to roam the streets in isolation all alone. She had her guard up all the time, always watching her back and noticing every little detail about everyone around her.

Remembering that at least one of the masked men, as well as the imposter inside the store, had seen what she looked like, Rach briefly reconsidered the Zorro-style mask. "No, it's still too damn obvious," she muttered to herself. She spent the better part of the next half hour, valuable tracking time, looking for anything that could be used to inconspicuously alter her appearance. In retrospect, Rach was unsure whether this was genuine inability to find appearance-altering items, or simply procrastination. Eventually she settled on peroxide bleach and sunglasses and hoped that they, in combination with the change of clothing style, would be enough to save her from instant recognition.

Elsewhere, the older man was remembering - seeing in his mind's eye the lost landscape of his childhood. Beneath him he could feel the chill unyielding harness of the gravestone. On exactly this spot as a ragged child he had wagged school, chased rabbits and poked sticks through the barbed wire and tea-tree at Grassy Petula's pigs. The glories of being a bin boy! The delicious thrill of illicit activity under the cover of responsibility, and all a stone's throw from school and a quarter mile from home!