On the road between the two main towns of Tasmania is a farm filled with dead trees. I always noticed them as I drove by every few months.
One random night, I decide to drive down to this farm of dead trees with my camera and a construction light. I sneak my car off the road and hop the farmer's fence, feeling impish, as a vivid memory flashes of the time I got chased off an apple farm in Tasmania by a gunshot (not without reason).
I walk, cautiously, in the moonless dark, with my camera and my light, to the first dead tree. Before too long, I feel my body flush with that feeling of being watched from behind. I look around and to my surprise, I see that I am actually being watched. A bunch of bright eyes floating in the darkness are staring at me, blinking. I'm frozen stiff, my eyes trained on these floating eyes trained on me.
I slowly realize I am looking at the faint silhouettes of sheep. A couple dozen of them, probably wondering, like I was a second ago, what the hell they are looking at.
I find my way to the first dead tree, sheep following, and set up the construction light. I turn it on while keeping a keen eye on the farmer's house, hoping his light doesn't also turn on. It doesn't. I take a picture, except nothing happens. No click. Try again. Nothing.
Profanity flows as my cold, clumsy fingers fiddle with camera controls. Neither fiddling nor profanity works.
So at this rather strange moment, shivering on a farm in the middle of Tasmania in the dead of night, in the company of creepy sheep and creepier trees, my camera is bricked.
Lucky I had my phone.
