Rainer

Why am I here, on Union Street? All by myself on the footpath. Under the narrow eave of a carport with cream rollerdoors. Staring at nothing.

It's raining that's why. It's raining hard. I'm waiting for someone to come and get me. I'm sad.

My hair is dripping; my scarf feels damp on the back of my neck. I'm wearing a black coat; I'm carrying a purple shopping bag. Inside the shopping bag the items are damp. I'm worried about the Weetbix in its cardboard box. The box is swelling.

In front of me is the street. Union Street. A quiet little street. Opposite me, a cream fence, and a tree. It's a small tree, with some autumn leaves, yellow, red, green, still clinging to the lower branches. The upper branches are bare.

The sky above the fence is dark grey, and the sky directly above me is white. There is a flash. And rumbling thunder. The sky's secret. The rain is easing.

To my left, a fence covered with a creeper. Orange trumpet flowers, waxy green leaves shining and wet. Quivering.

Pairings

Le Bon David writes well, says Pliny the Elder admiringly. I liked his first edition. He combines a skill in philosophical argument with a pleasing facility of description which you would do well to emulate.

Thanks, Pliny, I try, but I'll never be as good as him. I liked the way he drew our attention to the little white fingernail shells, and the crunching sounds they made when the bicycle went over them.

Yes, and the repetition of the image in the description of the foam, that was masterful.

It was. Do you know the sort of shells he was referring to, by the way?

I believe I do. The bivalved molluscs known as Pipi. They remind me of fingernails too. Which reminds me to ask, are you feeling poorly this morning? I see you have been wearing a big black scarf wound twice around your neck indoors. And sitting with a blue polar fleece decorated with dolphins folded double and tucked around your middle. That is not like you.

Well spotted, Pliny. Yes I have the beginnings of a sore throat and I'm trying to ward it off by keeping warm. But why did fingernails remind you to ask me that?

Because, says Pliny, I am reminded of a cure which magicians used to say would never fail.

What is it?

They recommend the parings of fingernails be thrown at the entrance of ant holes, and that the first ant to come out and try to draw one into the hole should be captured and attached to the neck of the patient. They say the patient will then experience a speedy cure.

The Minda Dune

Yesterday we had a challenging walk. It was my mum. She said, let's go this way for a change, when we got to the esplanade, so the three of us headed off into the teeth of the wind.

It was alright for her, she had a scarf.

The entire bay was empty, except for one little yacht. The horizon was shipfree. The sea was a deceptive shade of brown. The sort of brown that nips up into spiky jabbing black and green jaws at the corner of your eye, which disappear at once when you confront them.

Eight seagulls flying north. A squishy frothy patch a few metres out from the rocks, near the Minda Dune.

See that dune, says my mum. It's supposed to be a fragile environment. It doesn't look too fragile to me. It's just a mess.

She decides to go back and find a seat to sit on. We two continue into the wind for the sake of good form.

We turn back after five minutes, re-passing the Minda Dune. We look at the sign, which says Fragile Environment. The dune is fifty metres long and is only there by accident. The accident of belonging to Minda Home. Everywhere else has been cleared and built on. It is probably too small to be sustainable

There is a photograph of the types of flowers to be found in the hollows of the dune. They are tiny delicate pink yellow and white. There are no actual flowers anywhere to be seen. Only stunted windswept bushes, gnarled roots and long strings of half dead grasses sticking out at unsustainable angles from the sand.

I stare at it until it becomes beautiful.