Disco.
The rain caresses my ears cruelly.
I feel fear. The thunder clashes and screeches and roars. It is unrelenting and
it shall never tire. The thunder is enraged at something greater than me, and I
cannot control the fury. The sky is pulsing like an aggravated vein on a
swollen neck: it is a disco for the raindrops. I have not felt so in awe of the
world before. I watched Jurassic Park too recently and I know that tonight may
be an apocalypse too. Dinosaurs may emerge from the vortex beyond and into the
holiday house. The windows are weak and token against the force of a reptilian
claw. The lightning ebbs and flows and hesitantly reveals a scaly surface
nestled amongst the trees. It is present and then absent. The dinosaurs are
stirring.
The Burning Bush.
The flame tree was in full bloom
when Glynis dropped her home that day. It was deadly.
(God was watching).
Moses and his staff were futile
today. The burning bush was irrepressible and it shook red seeds and embers of
despair onto the pavement.
The syringa tree hovered in an
umbrella arch. The boughs draped down onto the rusted jungle-gym. The tree was
an alien here. When the wind blew, it shook its heavy branches and the syringa
berries fell. Her sister once ate a cocktail of dirt and grass and millipedes
and syringa berry. Her innocence saved her from the poison.
She was an anxious child. She was
too fearful. Her imagination would craft death and destruction with a wry
touch. She would peer like an elderly damaged soul through the lace and through
the curtains. The flame tree leered.
Where was the Corolla the familiar
hum of the engine the ascent of the roof-racks the squeak-squeak of the opening
gate the footsteps?
Her stomach curdled and chopped.
I don’t believe in dragons.
My grandmother had blue eyes. Her
hair was an eternal brown, stained dark with dye and care. She had kind
crinkles in the right places. Wrinkles were beginning to form, but were shooed
by rigorous application of a collection of creams. She lived next door to Joan,
who once gave me a Mickey Mouse bowl and spoon collection. Little was
remembered about Joan, but she was smaller and more wrinkled than my
grandmother, and had hair the colour of soft moonlight.
My grandmother was a collector but
not a hoarder. She had a white picket fence and God was her neighbour.
Her snapdragons snarled in their
rectangular cages. Their mouths snapped and sneezed without intent. They were
trapped by the dark soil: forced but futile sentries. They laughed silently at
danger but cowered when it came too close. The snapdragons were beautiful and
flawed and were stained red and crimson.
