The old homestead needed more than a touch of TLC. It needed to be demolished and the ground razed and the black stumps chopped up and buried.
Summer. Sandy hated summer. The heat, the flies, the extra feed for the animals. More water sucked from the stinky bore. She couldn’t drink that water, she couldn’t grow that feed. The animals wouldn’t last this summer.
The last flock of breeders. There’d be no more after this. Her heart wasn’t in it anymore.
The house. The beautiful old house. Sandy visualised it as it was when she bought it.
Edwardian, veranda’s on four sides, double-French doors that opened onto the cool veranda.
Now it was a black mass of charcoaled timber and blackened stone. The beautiful Jarrah floor was dust and ash under the stumps.
What was left was the chimney, the cast-iron wood stove, two or three pencils of framing timber around the veranda. Glass shone in all lights, glints of grey and silver, sparks of pain and blood.
The sheep bleated. Sandy walked to the last remaining tree with foliage. The animals ran up, bleating, bleating, bleating.
Two of the six that remained from the flock of eighty had scorch marks on their faces and flanks. One looked to be blind. Where was the rifle? Oh, it was in the house. One of the many pieces of melted metal blobs …
Home, where was home?
Summer is here, it’s been here for years.
Cage Dunn - Fibber, Fabricator, Teller-of-Tall-Tales 
Oh such an ache of devastation and hopelessness here. I’m sure so many are feeling it right now.
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The worst thing was in the paper yesterday, when the coverage of the funeral for one of the firies showed his 19mo daughter calling out to her daddy to ‘get out’ of the coffin. She wouldn’t let go.
It broke my heart.
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I can’t bear to think of little children losing a parent, let alone like that.
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I wanted the story to show that pain, but I couldn’t put it in – too hard.
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oh no
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A poignant piece; an old house, Edwardian, Jarrah – makes it even sadder.
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A very haunting piece.
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Too close to home
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Forgive me but I couldn’t like this one. Too raw, too real. Beautiful though, in a terrible way. Well done.
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Reblogged this on Times and Tides of a Beachwriter and commented:
At this terrible time in Australia I’ve shared from Australia a poem, a painting and now this short fiction from an Australian author I follow – Cage Dunn – stark imagery of everything lost.
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Thank you
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So powerful and painful. And the story in your comment about the funeral is heart breaking.
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This is very moving, Cage.
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Thank you – it touches the surface of what’s happening
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These tales need to be told, over and over again, until the blood and anguish wakes enough people to take action. Not the pollies, they’re too entrenched, bought and paid for, but communities, geographical and digital, that’s where the change is, and will come from.
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This brought tears to my eyes! Sending blessings and if I could, lots of rain.
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Thank you, I’ll spread them far and wide
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