Howling into the Abyss of Settler-Colonial Absurdism

A Decolonial Reading of "The Werewolves of Dusty Gulch"

By Dr. Aria Solidarity-Jones, PhD (Oxon), MA, BA (Hons), Certified Ally (Gold Tier)
Published in The Progressive Ploughshare and simultaneously in the Decolonial Dustbowl Review

At first glance, The Werewolves of Dusty Gulch presents itself as whimsical Australiana: a vampire emu plumber, a wallaby apprentice with titanium knees, a hacked rolling pin broadcasting Honklander propaganda, and a clandestine lycanthropic initiative known as Project Howl.

This reading is, of course, profoundly naive.

Beneath its veneer of rustic absurdity lies a deeply troubling text that reproduces settler-colonial assumptions through the intersecting frameworks of eco-socialism, critical animal studies, post-human hydrological justice, infrastructure decoloniality, and what I have elsewhere termed plumbocentrism.

Let us begin with the ducks.

The so-called "Dusty Nine" are not merely ducks.

They are water-adjacent beings occupying a liminal ecological space that has historically resisted anthropocentric categorisation. Their "professional elimination" is framed as mystery rather than atrocity, thereby erasing both their agency and their quack-based lived experience.

RATTY NEWS SPECIAL INVESTIGATION

THE WEREWOLVES OF DUSTY GULCH

Project Howl, the Hacked Rolling Pin, and the Mystery Beyond the Black Stump

By Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble
Chief Investigative Correspondent, Dusty Gulch Gazette
(Expendable, slightly chewed, currently stress-munching popcorn)

It began with murder.

One ordinary evening, the Dusty Nine were bickering over breadcrumbs beside the pond as only ducks can.

By sunrise... there were only feathers.

No blood. No struggle. No heroic last stand.

The Dusty Nine had not been eaten.

They had not been chased. They had been... eliminated.

Professionally. Surgically. Terrifyingly.

Whatever had visited Dusty Gulch that night had not come looking for dinner.

It had come looking for ducks. And the story I discovered will astonish all of our readers, even hardened boom bang bash watchers...

The Ghost Returns

The first thing he noticed was the silence.

Not the silence of an empty harbour. Sydney had never been a quiet place. Even in the deepest hours of night there was always a murmur -  the distant pulse of traffic, the whisper of footsteps along the water, the restless heartbeat of a city that refused to sleep.

But this was different.

This was the silence that comes when the voices have gone.

The fog drifted across the harbour, thick and silver, softening the lights of Circular Quay until the city seemed like a memory of itself. The towers stood above the water, shining and new, but beneath them lay another Sydney -  a city of timber, stone, sweat and dreams.

A city built by hands that had long since disappeared.

Then, through the mist, came the sound of wood against water.

Slowly, impossibly, a ship emerged.

It belonged to another age.

A Dream Needs a Driver: Sir William Hamilton, the Jet Boat, and the Men Who Took It Where No Boat Had Gone Before

I grew up around Hamilton jet boats.

My uncle was one of the first jet boat captains in the world. My brothers suddenly had rivers they could explore, disappearing up shallow, rocky waterways chasing deer in places no ordinary boat could reach.

Long before tourists paid to be frightened, I was the child hanging on for dear life while my uncle wore the grin of a man who knew exactly what he was doing.

It was an exciting time.

We were part of history and never even knew it.

What was it about this boat that made it so special? Was it the thrills, the spills and the excitement? For me, yes, most certainly.

But the real story was far greater than the spray, the speed and the laughter.

Sir William Hamilton gave the world the machine, but machines do not make history by themselves. They need people willing to trust them, master them and discover what they are truly capable of.

It takes pioneers to give captains something to work with.

Hamilton created the possibility.

The early jet boat captains proved it.

They were not simply driving boats.

They were exploring the boundaries of what those boats could do.

When I tell people I’m a beek, inevitably the first thing they say is, “Yes, we need to save the bees! They’re very important!”. While totally true, it is a noble statement that I cannot claim. I was dragged into beekeeping, kicking and screaming… well almost. 

When people say, “We need to save the bees,” they usually imagine someone passionate, fearless, and purpose-driven in a white veil suit.

That wasn’t me. I didn’t plan to become a beekeeper—in fact, I was dragged into it by necessity, not nature.

What began as a practical solution to a tax issue soon turned into something much more: a lesson in courage, humility, and the quiet brilliance of life inside the hive.