Tomorrow when war began: Homer's counter-narrative to Ellie's account

¶ … Tomorrow when War began: Homer's perspective

Writing a few years after the event when I am quite an elderly man and musing about the account that somehow or other made its way back into the past and interested an exceptionally large audience (many of them young I understand), I have to remark that Ellie's account was super-exaggerated.

Possibly, readers like stories where everything works out well for young individuals and where, given our alleged immortality we remain unscathed by incidents. It makes me wonder how Ellie could deceive herself into thinking that the readers would be so gullible as to believe her, and, indeed, this is just what they seem to do. Australia has never been invaded, and never likely well (God-bless our national home!), but Wirrawee was, indeed, totally destroyed and its citizens captured by the enemy.

It was not so easy -- as Ellie -- implied to turn this ride-on lawn mower into an explosive. We were fearfully frightened and unable to think straight due to the terrific stress that we were under. Lee and Kelvin had their own ideas about how to work the stuff, and, of course, Fiona thought it was a waste of time. We almost thought it wouldn't work.

Lee was more than shot in the leg. No powerful enemy, unless he were really stupid, would stop at that. Lee had to pretend that he was dead in order to make his exit, and then he waited a while until he was certain the enemy had gone. It was, likely, some nutritional supplement (a certain herb) that he had experimented with earlier in the bush that had saved him, but, nonetheless, as Ellie fails to remark (probably because she feels guilty regarding her over lapse, or because she wants to feel good in that she had saved Lee's life), we had to have Lee hospitalized as soon as our adventures were over and as soon as we possibly could.

The excavator plan -- apologies to Ellie -- did not issue with her. It came from my brilliant mind that had been, for weeks previous, playing with the idea as a result of my obsession with companion robots. I use mini excavators and like tools to protect and defend my robot collection from each other as I engage them in mock battle displays. Jomini and Clausewitz have always been two of my favorite Napoleonic generals and my battle strategies have developed from their military treatises. Ellie had the gall to claim the idea as hers. Know that you were duped in believing so. The privilege of rescuing Lee (after only two -- not many -- soldiers were killed) falls to me.

The incident of my relationship with Fi was well described, but inadequate. How can one possibly start to express the love of my life and the wonderful person that Fi was and is. Ellie did disservice to description of her virtues and to the intensity of our love relationship. Obviously there was much that she didn't know. Incidentally, I am no longer in love with Fi. More to the point, what Ellie was unaware of was that I was, simultaneously, in love with Lee, but since I didn't want to get into Ellie's book in a negative way (and I knew she had started writing this book), we -- Lee and I - kept our relationship well under wraps.