Brunswick Street

The winter was long and dark and the people endured patiently. In the cottage, the meal was finished and cleared away. Everyone settled near the fire, one with a book, two with a pack of cards, one had some sewing, another was fidgeting. They exchanged thoughts and the little news that they had. The fidgety one snuggled up next to Tirra.

"I'm cold," he said.

She took his cool hands between hers and smiled at him. He smiled his boyish smile back to her and added,

"Tell us a story, Tirra. Something to make us warm."

Tirra looked up at the gloomy ceiling, "Okay, let me see." She looked around and saw interested faces. The reader put her book down.

"Once upon a time….." she commenced with a slow smile.

"Summer came early. The heat was oppressive and the people shed their layers of winter clothes quickly. At first they felt free and wonderful without the wrappings they had worn all winter. The men enjoyed the beautiful women in singlet tops and flimsy skirts. The women enjoyed the body shapes of the men in shorts.

The hot winds blew from the west day after day and turned the new green grass to brown. Cut flowers wilted in hours, tempers frayed quickly and the beautiful women looked tense while the handsome men looked harried.

The hot winds blew all day, making the wind chimes crash unpleasantly. The sky was a strange polished silver colour. The traffic snarled through the hot city streets and taxi drivers were more curt than usual. The haze thickened and cyclists wore face masks. There was a smell of smoke, pungent and woody, in the thick air. Bushfires surrounded the city, burning swathes of black though mountain bushland and threatening remote hamlets.

Life seemed stuck in an endless sameness of despair. Lovers watched aghast as love wilted in the relentless heat. Mothers feared for their children and governors had no energy for illicit affairs. Sad stories of regret and despair filled the news.

As another burnished sky repeated itself, Miranda stepped along the hot narrow pavement of Brunswick Street. The strangeness of the street and the weather combined to give her a surreal sense of walking through a Herman Hesse novel. The quirky old buildings glowed in the greenish-yellow light from the late afternoon sky. Papers twirled in the hot air and cars coughed past.

She sweated in the gritty air and wiped a curling tendril of sticky hair from her forehead. But not even this heat could dim the loveliness of Miranda -- heads turned slyly as she glided quietly along, her pale skin aglow in the strange light of late afternoon. Her eye was caught by a few books in the grimy window of a desultory kind of bookshop. She paused and looked through the door at the worn wooden floor and faded displays.

The owner lolled in his chair near the door, his athletic brown legs stretched out. Shorts and sandals were the only sensible dress in these hot days.

Miranda browsed through the odd collection of books on architecture and art. She carefully turned the pages to be captured by amazing images followed by stunning scenes – the most dazzling works of human creation found an unexpected place here in gritty Brunswick Street.

The air hung hot and heavy. She glanced outside and saw that the light had darkened to a strange greyish-yellow in the few minutes she had been there. The air stirred some stray papers, making them flutter and waver along the street.

She walked to the door and felt a gust of hot air then turned again to browse in the back room of the shop.

The owner looked up at her from cool eyes. The air hung heavy and the pages of the books seemed to curl a little in the hot air. A fine dust from the wooden floor seemed to coat everything, stirred by the air movement on the street.

Miranda smiled at an illustrated book of duck families -- the little yellow ducklings lined up to look brightly at her from the page. The photographer had an eye for patterns and presented crisp shots of clear yellow ducklings on emerald green grass… a cluster of perfect duck-images on an unreal green.

Glancing up, her attention was caught by a change in the air, a flicker of newness, a breath of difference. She caught herself poised with the duck book in her hands as she looked towards the street. From the corner of her eye, she noticed that the owner was looking out too.

Through the grimy glass of the shopfront she could see dust and leaves blowing down the street. Passersby walked head-down into the wind. A small smile came to her face, she put the book down absent-mindedly and walked in wonder to the door.

The dust of the shop floor made little eddies near the door and tickled her ankles. She stood lightly in the doorway and felt the wafts of wind that were carrying the street debris through the air. Miranda smiled as the wind blew stronger and the light thickened darkly. She looked up to a sky of yellow-slate clouds, lit by the last light of day.

The wind came from another world bringing an otherness with it. She felt it touch her collarbones and throat and softly brush her cheek. She surrendered smilingly to it. It caressed her hot skin and dusted her with grime, but still she smiled. She thought she detected a slightly cooler aspect to it.

She was aware of her feet, hot and sticky, in her sandals. Her dress hung heavy on her, her hair was damp, but she lifted her face to the gritty wind and welcomed the promise it carried. She felt the wind from another place blow across her, through her. A faintly cooler warmth touched her and she smiled.

Her skirt flicked and her hair whipped across her face as the hot wind pulled at them. Miranda walked lightly along the hot, windy street and planned to eat dinner outside so she could savor, minute by minute, the falling temperature brought by this energetic southerly change.

She stepped gracefully into the wind and melted into the streetscape.

Tirra finished her story and reached for her mug of tea. Quiet settled over the room as each person was occupied with warm thoughts and the work of their hands.