It has been my entire teenaged life since I have lived in the South. I left around 12 and returned around 19. Canberra, Sydney and London I learnt, to some extent, but Georgia, I lost. Coming back, walking around the moonscape towns with stock from the 70s, I take photographs of very large jars of mayonnaise and feel witty. I run through captions in my head.

Mayonnaise or inbreeding? A Battle to the Death

Too harsh, but conceptually on point. I move on, and take a photo of a single serving snack pickle. It is a very funny thing to be in rural Georgia for your summer holidays.

There are people here who knew me as a child. It is midsummer, and, they remind me, they know lots of head tricks to handle the heat. There is the concept of fishing.  There is talking very slowly. There is driving long vulture roads with truck windows down. Sweet tea.

I am no good. I gave up all of my heat magics, or maybe I never got them. On fourth of July weekend,  I wade neck deep into the river and read The Curse of the Woosters.  Whenever I hear people upstream I hide.

I watch through the patches between the laurels and see them floating down, in tubes, canoes, coolers bobbing behind. One guy wears a confederate flag like a cape. The Georgia flag has the confederate flag in it. Still, it is outrageous.

I realise they have seen me, Gollum in the laurels, I wave back,

“He-ei-ay!”

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this then is the first in my series of Georgia Portraits

My dad’s Southern best friend, Marshall:

• Comes every day with tomatoes the size of kittens and whole, translucent peaches in moonshine
• Keeps photos of his dead sausage dog on his person
• Knows about the July week all the Mexicans vanished. (Eggs piled up ankle deep in the Dove County chicken sheds and scrambled in the heat.)
• Will live forever.

Does Marshall manage Dove County? It is hard to tell. Marshall remembers me when I was seven and lonely. Offhanded, he gave me a wormy kitten. My mum gave her back, eventually, but I still got fleas.

All I need to tell the time, as I let everything I own run out of battery, is the sun and the road. The sun is very early morning. Marshall driving to his chicken shed is early morning. Marshall heading discretely away from his chicken shed to gossip and eat chicken biscuits in Bojangles is morning.

My English grandpa is an Admiral and I think he would get along very well with Marshall and that is an enormous compliment to my grandpa.

Feeling superior to Marshall is the most unpleasant thing about me.

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Rose Barnsley is in her second year of a Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy at the University of Sydney. You can find her other writing on Berfrois.