THE MYTH OF FINGERPRINTS

A late March afternoon, brimful of birdscreech. Salmon light slabbed
up on fibro and thatches of cloud breeding overhead. Sam Davis feeds a
hose into the ditch behind his mother's house and watches the dirt
turn from brown to black. He moves his feet into the mud and twists
his body until he's sunken in, and the water is up to his ankles.
This, for Sam, is the best place in the world. He is seventeen years
old. It is the last year if his life.