Shhh! Scribbler at Work

Sign of the Times

(prompt: 'sign' 13/7/2018)

"It's never going to happen. Never!"

A tight, desperate swallow couldn't stem the tears filling my eyes. I blinked and it was done. They overflowed.

Kanute's comforting arm went around my shuddering shoulders. It felt good and I found myself able to slow my breathing.

"I know love. I know." I hear again the sadness and loss in his voice, though my eyes were blurred and a strange, almost painful ringing filled my ears. My always logical and optimistic guy? I swear I heard a sob hiding within his voice as he said, "I truly thought the one today might be IT." His hug tightened as he blew out the heaviest of sighs, "Sshh darlin'... just gotta be patient. Hang on a little longer - that's what we've gotta do."

I nodded slowly and my heart sank even lower – if that was possible. Deep in the Adelaide hills, tucked privately away at the end of a leafy winding lane, all that could be seen of this farm was a ramshackle gateway. Its rusty hinges were all but hidden by the profusion of tall weeds flanking each side. The crumbling wooden letterbox was forced to a precarious angle by one particularly fierce clump of Scotch thistles.

The large triangle of land that spread out from this apex was beautiful... some of the greenest and most fertile land we'd yet seen. Great and lesser gums and countless other varieties of trees abounded, and a small creek gurgled down a valley tucked barely inside the side boundary. This treasure certainly fulfilled the promise of being 'a little piece of Paradise' so gloriously described by the enthusiastic real estate agent.

We tried valiantly to ignore the neglect of pastures and disrepair or fences and yards. And then we found the house. How clear the memory of yet another description the 'not so trusty' real estate salesman had used - about the house this time –

'... just needs a handyman. Be right up your alley, wouldn't it Kanute? You were a carpenter before your Building Supervisor's job now... weren't you?"

Hmm... a handyman with a bulldozer preferably - for a house with cracks so wide you could put your whole arm in. That's just all  it needed.

Some years after our first sighting, we revisited that pretty, shady corner of the woods. The property now had a name on the still-rusting and precariously leaning gate, in lieu of the For Sale sign.

Poverty Point - ironically! No matter how many decades pass, indelible images return of that tumbledown cottage and sheds; fences made up of patches on patches; everything in sight gasping for urgent resuscitation.

The need for a handyman was right – highly skilled, ingenious, eyes filled with stars; bottomless pockets filled with money. Uhrr... yes to the first three, but the last? Definitely not us.

Thankfully, our destiny would be much different... in the long run.