The Glow on the Outback Hill

We hadn’t had TV news for days

And the nights were cold and still,

The radio sound was just a haze

Of hash, from over the hill,

There wasn’t a signal for the phone

And the Internet was dead,

‘Do you think it’s just the weather, Bill?’

‘Much more than that,’ I said.

 

The power went off on the seventh day

I began to feel alarm,

We’d never felt quite so isolated

On our outback farm.

I drove on out to the neighbour’s spread

But they seemed to have gone away,

I thought, ‘That’s funny, it’s not like Fred,

He’s usually baling hay.’

 

I came back via the Rogers place,

There was nobody around,

The doors to the house were open, but

They seemed to have gone to ground.

Their cars were there but the truck was gone

And the old Toyota Ute,

I called and listened, but not a sound,

I should have been more astute.

 

I should have packed, and driven away

If I’d known what I know now,

But the pigs and the chickens had to be fed,

And what to do with the cow?

I couldn’t think much outside the farm

The world could fend for itself,

We lived in a tiny world of our own

And thought about nothing else.

 

We lit the paraffin lamps at night,

‘It’s lucky we kept them, Bill.’

I said, ‘You’re right,’ and stood on the porch,

And watched the glow on the hill.

We’d had three days of never a breeze

Like the lull before a storm,

Though the clouds glowed red in the sky at night

In shapes that were ripped and torn.

 

A rumble began the thirteenth day

Like a thundering from afar,

And Jacqueline turned to me to say,

‘Stop leaving the door ajar!’

She then collapsed, and covered her ears

And bent down low in her chair,

I saw that her face was smeared with tears

And all I could do was stare.

 

‘You know that I love you, Jacqueline,

Whatever may come to pass,

I love you more than the day before,

I just want to tell you, lass.’

It started raining at just on dusk,

Came down, and started to pour,

It raised a mist, and started to hiss

In the barley stooks by the door.

 

The lightning started at four a.m.

We hadn’t been able to sleep,

The sky ablaze through a purple haze

I could hear my woman weep.

I wiped the dust off the .22

That I’d kept there, under the stairs,

Loaded a fresh new magazine

And silently said my prayers.

 

The cow was dead in the morning, lay

Quite burned, and covered in blood,

And all the chickens were strewn about

Quite dead, they lay in the mud,

‘What does it mean,’ said Jacqueline

As she stared through the window pane,

‘I don’t want to be too hasty, love,

But I think it was acid rain.’

 

‘There’s nobody left but us,’ she said,

Be honest and tell me true!’

‘I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but

There’s something we need to do.

Pack up our clothes, and all the food,

We’d better be heading West,

If Sydney’s gone, a hydrogen bomb,

Then Melbourne would have been next.’

 

We’re headed on out to who knows where

And leaving the rain behind,

I hope that the cloud won’t follow us there

Though we’ll be travelling blind.

The .22 is behind the seat

In case we have need of it,

I pray to God that we’ll have it beat,

But Jacqueline’s just been sick!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[roarke]

Why leave the outback? I like how you neatly contrasted the two living environments to set the dialogue setting. Would anyone inevitably survive? I don't want to know. Live each day, the way the outback allows, and that's the very best anyone can hope for. the rest... is just madness and folly, better left to it's own demise. We dread nuclear war, and so it is to be dread, but there are nuclear reactors enough everywhere that should more turn out like the ones at Fukashima, then .........

[Zahra]

Wonderfully told story. I like the way your stories flow and the smooth rhyming. Very nice

[Beccy]

No matter the rhetoric and denials, we live in the shadow of the finger on the button. This is a timely and prescient reminder of that fact.

Really well written lines.

Beccy.

[Lena M. P.]

Wow that was quite shocking but one of yours that could very possibly be a premonition. Let's hope these crazies in the world turn themselves around.

[Marie]

I had to gasp at that last line. This is very descriptive...I could feel the lonliness of tha OUt Back farm, waiting for doom...

[TL Boehm]

This is a sobering write, Friend David. I had this feeling as I read the first few stanzas - there was that foreshadowing tone - that this was not going to end well but you didn't give it away till the appropriate time, once again the right mix of imagery, skill and emotion to make this a great story.