Every year a dozen or so 20-somethings converge at a friend's beach house on the bastard side of Victoria's coastline in Gippsland. Further up the coast towards our real lives at university Phillip Island juts out into Bass Strait, nightly sacrificing itself to the infinite blackness of sea and clouds.
And some nights, when playing cards seems too inconsequential for a place like this, we head out into that darkness too. Holding hands through the tea trees as the narrow beach track curls its way towards the dull roar of the ocean, we are rebonded.
One night last summer the full moon illuminated the silky water and tepid sand like a disco ball. Rounding one corner suddenly we could see a kilometer of open beach and, in the middle distance, two men standing around a fire. Distance and flames distorted their shadows, turning them into phantoms.
There was a moment when we checked our step, but the group mentality did not counsel caution. Six on two; but what were they doing here? Our motives were innocuous but they had established a fire, marked their territory.
At 400 m sparks shot up as the men hurriedly began throwing things on the fire. It was still impossible to make out the aim of their industry but at 300 m they left the fire still burning and began walking towards us. At 200 m fishing rods became discernible in their hands.
At 100 m I remembered the famous scene from Camus' The Outsider, which I had read for school on that same beach a few summers earlier: A man approaches two other men across blisteringly hot sand. One of the two produces a knife which glistens in the sun, and so the single man — overcome by sweat and an unnamed oppression — shoots him. Later he cannot justify his actions and is made to hang.
That night, however, the men passed with a laconic wave and self-evident aside: 'There's a fire over there if you guys want it.' Relieved we said thanks and continued on to inherit their camp.
The flames were still licking up off the sand and we made jokes about Survivor as we sat in a circle to feel warm. We admired the fire's structure, expertly kindled in the shape of a tee-pee — or a funeral pyre.
We spoke about the same profound, naïve things we usually did, trying to link our small fears and audacious