The Witness

I didn’t come north to write The Bike.

I came to the rainforest to disappear into another book, Melted. I left Sydney to start a new life. Far North Queensland was meant to be a forward motion, not a return. I thought I was moving on, not looking back. But The Bike was always there. Like most people I was dragging my ghosts, an exile but I thought it was a new beginning, but I couldn’t stop running from myself. Those ghosts, shame, fear, doubt, regret, were still there, and I couldn’t integrate them or have individuation until I confronted the past. I didn’t understand that I was still running.