Dear Doctor,

I woke up in time for our appointment and decided to spend that time walking through the reserve to A's house, rather than waiting for C to drive me later on. C assured me she could still follow with my case. I took out hat, gloves, scarf, donned thermals and my jeans. I kissed the baby goodbye and the baby gave me the sign language for 'more' - two hands together, then pulled quickly apart. Her mothers were working on porridge as I left.

It's so unrepresentative, what I'll tell you when I return. I walked through the reserve as the frost was starting to melt. I used my GPS and knew I couldn't lose myself, even when I left the track and followed animal trails through the banksia. I came up the first crest of the hill onto a mob of kangaroos, stopped before they startled, then had to go closer of course, just to see. Soon they scattered - or most did - but not very far. When I looked to my left I saw that some were even closer now, evaluating me. Perhaps they were habituated to human company, looking for food. I turned back the way I came.

What is it, what is it, why am I writing this, these messages? Since you went under the new provider there's no exchange of papers. I read what I can to you, if I wish to spend our time that way, and you leave with just your handwritten notes in my file. I leave at fifty minutes; you leave at sixty after updating the notes, which are checked at the door, as you've told me. It reminds me of A's wedding, how afterwards the silhouette of the pavilion was dismantled, and I watched it coming down pillar by pillar. Or a similar scene, a few years later - I sat at a window with Bella as the huge Norfolk pine was felled in Eaves Park. Not dramatically, with one cut, but piece by piece, beginning at the top. Bella chirruped in the back of her throat, her best bird call, as if that man in the sling was the most fearsome of bird gods, and he must now be appeased. He crept down the tree, vanishing it as he went. We knew, Bella and I, that soon he would be loosed upon the ground, and what would he do then with his vanishing?

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I understand it was necessary, the transition - necessary if you wanted to keep your work permit.