CHRISSY

1

The heat clung to the walls like transparent plastic drapes in a steam bath.
In the darker recesses of the old fibro home mildew was slowly eating its way through wood and clothing.
Angela lay drooped, limp as a soggy rag doll, upon the brown, faded, and threadbare, sofa, damp slowly spreading beneath her. Sticky, silent, penetrating.

She wasn't comfortable, only very tired, with an edginess that comes from restless nights, and dragging introspective days.

In the old kitchen a radio was mumbling, talking, forever talking, always on, but seldom listened to.

The house was old, basic, with drab, pale green, walls. It was a falling down cottage, well past its glory days. Once it had been a happy house, the walls had bowed to the sound of laughter, gaiety and happiness. Now the laughter was seldom heard, sometimes from a child, but that was transient, shallow, and soon forgotten. It was not the contented laughter of age, which can drift from long roads of experience, trials overcome, and minds that know themselves and are at rest.

Angela lit another cigarette, an unconscious action, it was just after two am.

She blew the smoke towards the stained ceiling and involuntarily let out a deep sigh. It was dark in the curtained room, and in one musty corner the old TV flickered out scenes of elegant women, well-dressed men. The sound was down as the images flickered across the room.

She listened to the noises of the night, strange movements under the house, something hunting, killing, she shivered and looked towards the door....it began to move, slightly, slowly....she watched, unbelieving.

'Bullshit', she screamed to herself.

She stared at the door, it slowly closed.

She got up and crept over, grabbed the handle and pulled it open, nothing, only a darkened night sky, no moon greeted her, or stars, the cloud was thickening.

'Fuck, I must be going mad', she thought to herself, 'I wish it would bloody rain, I hate the wet, but let it bloody come, this waiting for it gives you the shits.'
Angela realised she was once again talking to no one except the wind.

And the depressive, suicidal, wet season was not far away.

Angela knew, she just didn't give a fuck; in fact she didn't care about much at all, except for Chrissy, her only child, the reason why she stayed......... anywhere.

There was seldom an hour went by when she didn't think of her daughter, nine years old, with a wisdom well beyond her years. The little girl had known little other than this world in Far North Queensland, a world of tee shirts, shorts, bare feet, mangoes and avocados for lollies, and an old school hat which seldom left her head.

For four years Chrissy had travelled the same journey to school, two hours a day on an old bus that had seen many better days, plastic seats, rattling windows and stiff springs.

Angela trusted the driver to take care of her special daughter, he treated the children as though he was their grandfather, he was careful and caring, sometimes, she thought, a little too caring...or was it, yet again, her imagination.

Chrissy always had plenty to tell her mother when she returned from school. Angela knew her daughter, at least, had a life, something Angela had lost, a long time ago.
She had one of those rare abilities of listening intently to what you were saying, whilst floating above, and far away, in thoughts and fields of her own. She seemed to live in two worlds, but could always fire back an answer when you thought she was being inattentive.