Everything is quiet. Everything is still.
It hasn’t rain for two whole years.
We wait and wait and wait, until we are no longer sure what we are waiting for and whether it will ever come.
Beyond our desolate farm I can see the horizon where a few dark clouds cruelly taunt us with promises of rain.
It never comes, and now our dam is a patch of dry cracked mud surrounded by parched brown land.
Propped up against the side of our old broken-down cart, is a new sign. Its red paint is still wet:
FARM FOR SALE.
The cicadas have been shrilling, calling impatiently for rain. This morning even they are quiet.
The silence steals into corners and cracks, nooks and crannies. It spreads and suffocates everything, like a hot, dry blanket.
My mother stands on the veranda watching the distant cloud of dust swirling behind my father’s ute. He’s gone to the bank in town and we’re not sure when he’ll be back.
My dog Munro greets me as I step outside. He stretches, sniffing the air with interest.
“What is it, fella? What’s out there?”
Suddenly, I feel a gentle breeze, like a sigh of relief against my skin. I swing around to see that a mass of dark clouds has filled the sky.
Thunder rolls and my skin prickles with goosebumps at the sound.
From the distant paddock, I can hear the cattle bellowing, crying of their thirst and hunger.
Shadows disappear; melting into a world turned grey. The dust is whipped into a frenzy and on the cool gust of wind I can smell rain coming. I’m sure of it now.
Pit… pat… pit… pat…
Pitter, pitter, pat… the first drops beat out a hesitant rhythm on the corrugated-iron roof.
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