staring heavenward at the red kite. Its ribbon snapped as it found a stream of air and began climbing higher. I stood behind a tall column of marble, leaned into it to steady myself, and raised the camera. I felt the vibration of the film unwinding against my cheek as the cogs began to feed it across the camera’s eye. When I couldn’t see the kite, just the boys walking backwards with their arms stretched to the heavens, it looked as though they were engaged in some kind of ecstatic worship. And then I remember clearly how the air in front of me suddenly quivered. It was as though the air in front of my face became water, two thin streams rippling, their currents going opposite ways. I felt a sudden harsh sting in my nostrils and gasped, rearing away from it. In the moment it takes to blink, in the instant I staggered back from the odour, the water parted and a thin white line zig-zagged down in front of me. Light swirled, became a ball turning, and then a concussion of air whomped me hard, dead centre in my chest. I felt myself fall backwards, and in the final dim split-second of consciousness, I remember hearing voices.
I opened my eyes. Overhead, a green canopy of branches swayed, and beyond it I caught glimpses of the sky, high and clear, and of the red kite, a tiny triangle now, gliding gracefully across the face of it. Sunlight exploded in brilliant pockets of light among the trees, and I realized that the air moved now. I could see, in the swaying branches of birch, that the air had begun to move.
I became aware of the ground beneath me, as though it had just materialized, damp from the previous night’s rainfall. There was abitter metallic taste in my mouth. I pushed up onto my elbows and felt an ache in my breastbone. As I sat up the movement rocked inside my head, making the world tilt and then gradually steady. My knees shook when I stood and so I reached for the headstone for support. I touched it, and felt its cool surface beneath my hand. I knew I wasn’t dead, then. The stone was real. The boys’ voices from the golf course were real too. I looked down at my feet where the camera lay. Its metal casing was completely ruined, battered, a deep dent in its side as though it had been smashed with a hammer. Then I saw my feet. The buckle on one of my sandals was black and bent, like it had been crimped with a pair of pliers.
The boys’ voices, the cool dampness in my tee shirt, the sound of the wind swaying in the branches above me, were confirmation that the world was still there. But I felt that I stood somewhere outside of it, looking in. I left the camera and towel lying in the grass and walked towards the front gate and the wrought-iron angels flying across it, the trumpets at their mouths heralding my passing. I still tasted metal on my tongue, and felt that my limbs were somehow lighter. I began to walk towards Main Street where there would be people and traffic. The sky seemed to be much higher and brighter and the store-fronts vivid, sharp outlines against the day. My feet barely touched the ground as I ran across the school grounds towards home. I remember how I pushed off and sailed, my stride yards long and high, the pull of gravity much less than it had been before. I thought it might be possible to challenge gravity, to stretch my arms and will myself to leap and rise above the houses and follow the path of the telephone wires, thread my way through the forest of television antennas, become a ghost in the screens of all the television sets in the living rooms of Carona. I had been struck by lightning and survived.
“Well, it’s possible. I might find the time to do it tomorrow after work,” Margaret says to Bunny. She stands in the centre of the kitchen with her fingers against her throat as though she’s tracking her pulse. She has pushed her hair back from her forehead with one of the silver combs and it stands straight up now, a curly auburn tiara.
Bunny and Margaret watched in mock
I opened my eyes. Overhead, a green canopy of branches swayed, and beyond it I caught glimpses of the sky, high and clear, and of the red kite, a tiny triangle now, gliding gracefully across the face of it. Sunlight exploded in brilliant pockets of light among the trees, and I realized that the air moved now. I could see, in the swaying branches of birch, that the air had begun to move.
I became aware of the ground beneath me, as though it had just materialized, damp from the previous night’s rainfall. There was abitter metallic taste in my mouth. I pushed up onto my elbows and felt an ache in my breastbone. As I sat up the movement rocked inside my head, making the world tilt and then gradually steady. My knees shook when I stood and so I reached for the headstone for support. I touched it, and felt its cool surface beneath my hand. I knew I wasn’t dead, then. The stone was real. The boys’ voices from the golf course were real too. I looked down at my feet where the camera lay. Its metal casing was completely ruined, battered, a deep dent in its side as though it had been smashed with a hammer. Then I saw my feet. The buckle on one of my sandals was black and bent, like it had been crimped with a pair of pliers.
The boys’ voices, the cool dampness in my tee shirt, the sound of the wind swaying in the branches above me, were confirmation that the world was still there. But I felt that I stood somewhere outside of it, looking in. I left the camera and towel lying in the grass and walked towards the front gate and the wrought-iron angels flying across it, the trumpets at their mouths heralding my passing. I still tasted metal on my tongue, and felt that my limbs were somehow lighter. I began to walk towards Main Street where there would be people and traffic. The sky seemed to be much higher and brighter and the store-fronts vivid, sharp outlines against the day. My feet barely touched the ground as I ran across the school grounds towards home. I remember how I pushed off and sailed, my stride yards long and high, the pull of gravity much less than it had been before. I thought it might be possible to challenge gravity, to stretch my arms and will myself to leap and rise above the houses and follow the path of the telephone wires, thread my way through the forest of television antennas, become a ghost in the screens of all the television sets in the living rooms of Carona. I had been struck by lightning and survived.
“Well, it’s possible. I might find the time to do it tomorrow after work,” Margaret says to Bunny. She stands in the centre of the kitchen with her fingers against her throat as though she’s tracking her pulse. She has pushed her hair back from her forehead with one of the silver combs and it stands straight up now, a curly auburn tiara.
Bunny and Margaret watched in mock
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