As the relentless humidity built in intensity, so did my frenetic activity. I had burnt my bridges, moved across the country to a different climate, different vegetation, different house, different people. So, I was determined to make this radical change work.
The house I'd bought was low and nondescript, brick and tile. Perched on the high side of the road, I considered flooding a low risk. A sloping front garden to the relatively busy road, a large rambling back yard with a folder clothesline. The previous owner had been a smoker, so I'd painted the children's bedroom's in the final days before moving in. The kitchen benchtop and stove was replaced, ceiling fans added. My parents had bought me new furniture, so any twinge of uncertainty was shooed away by the realisation of how lucky I was. They'd also talked me into trading in my reliable and familiar car for a new and pristine car. As my life was supposed to become...
I was working, Alex was in school, Vanessa was starting a chef's apprenticeship at a pizzeria. All of these enterprises were vaguely unsatisfactory. But once again, I had to look on the bright side, find the silver lining. So, I kept dancing as fast as I could, striving for the perfect outcome. And as the oppressive heat rose, cracks began to appear in my carefully choreographed performance.
The storm eventually broke one afternoon on 1 December 2005. The deluge of rain was a continual drumming, the lightning raw and savage, the thunder ear-splitting. The raindrops were not a gentle splish splosh, rather a wallop of water streaming in an almost solid curtain from the sky to the ground. As I watched, the wall at the neighbouring property acted like the edge of the Niagara Falls, a heavy cascade that was swiftly drenching my brick-paved verandah. I watched the water rise, wondering how I would keep the flow out of the house if it breached the base of the sliding door. Wading through the ankle-deep water outside the door, all my dreams of order and peace seemed to be disappearing beneath the surface.
That afternoon storm dumped two hundred and fifty millilitres of rain over a three hour period. That afternoon also coincided with my realisation that I'd made an awful mistake.
Yep...
No comments:
Post a Comment