Billy walked everywhere backwards. His grandfather taught him to do it. He began doing it when he was thirteen years, six months and seven days old. It was the day they met. His mother thought it was her fault he did it.

"You need to take care after the tenth step, son. Raise your foot high. keep it flat. Put it hard onto the ground. Between the terrestrial surface and ionosphere a resonant hole is formed. Electromagnetic impulses and lightning flashes, fill this cavity, and create Schumann's resonance. This is how we appear to move back in time. No one can move forwards, of course."

In the beginning Billy fell over several times as the concrete pavement under his feet turned into uneven dirt. What unnerved him was the buildings faded, shrank, the traffic sounds disappeared. He'd fallen into a pat of manure left behind by the milkman. He knew it was his grandfather's horse that had done it.

"You never liked Joe... So, you must be glad I finally left him," Billy's mother threw at her father, when they talked about Billy walking backwards.

"Yes... I never liked him - but Billy needs a dad... I'm no substitute. You'd be wise to get in touch. You know he's only trying to find the point in time when you and his father were attached to each other by more than a sticky white mess."

Billy's grandfather knew exactly why he walked backwards too. He wanted to go back to the time when he was about eighteen or nineteen, nineteen eighteen and the war had just ended. They both stopped their mouths from betraying their inner thoughts to the person they knew could never understand. Perhaps they should have done so. Billy was happy then. That was before his mother decided to assuage her guilt.

"Well, Mrs Kerwin. I have to tell you, I've spoken to Billy and we've done all the tests. No, no, please..." the doctor she visited batted her down like a disobedient lapdog. "He has a personality disorder called Schumann's Syndrome."

The man sitting across the desk from her in the padded leather chair, large and domineering behind the oak desk, began to play charades. First his left hand meshed with his right and she guessed - a bird's nest. His mouth was opening and closing like a chick screaming to be fed. An eagle flew into the nest and it burst apart. His right hand became an angry plover divebombing while his left conducted a pipe band at a military tattoo.

She looked out the window, high in a building overlooking the harbour. it was a view the tax payer paid for - or several rich clients wanting to find an excuse for their bad behaviour. The sky had been feathered by a blowtorch. A mob of celestial sheep shattered and shed their fleece as they went. Perhaps it had been scorched off. A breeze wilted as it flopped into the water.

"What? I don't understand. What can I do? It's my fault... isn't it doctor? It's because his father hit me... I never wanted to say..." her voice quavered, the doctor heard his daughter playing a violin.

"You won't understand. it's a complex medical condition." She heard snatches of sentences, "... years of training. I wrote a book... simplified... You can buy it at the front desk."

Billy's mother thought it must be like a Book of Shadows and asked, "So, will it tell me what an ordered personality is?"

She felt his fingers prod her back and a brusque voice ordered her to leave. She stumbled through the jungle of legs in the waiting room - avoiding the bookshelf and saying nothing when passing her medicare card to the receptionist.

Billy's grandfather saw the new pill bottle on the shelf in the bathroom midway between the letters 'p' and 't'. Billy took his grandson by the hand and they walked backwards. They went back to a time when drizzle was weaving its way around the houses and a man was delivering bottles of milk to front verandahs. He heard horse noises and something he'd never noticed before.

There was a baby in the cart. The man delivering the bottles went to it when it began to cry and carefully picked it up. Billy heard his name being called and felt at peace. His grandfather looked at him square-on.

"Come on Billy, what do you want to do son? We can stay here. We don't need to go back. That's you in the cart, with me, delivering the milk. Just say the word... and it will be done."

Billy nodded. He suddenly felt like his body was too small and it felt wet around the legs. His hands bashed at his legs and he tried to talk but only a gurgle came out as the milkman looked down at him and put something soft, full of milk into his mouth.