Claire Zorn - The Sky So Heavy

‘Yeah. I guess… Hey, I don’t know if it’s safe for them to play in it.’

‘Really?’ Her eyes widened. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Yeah, I mean I don’t know for sure, but…’

‘Should probably get them inside then.’

‘Do you have lots of food?’

She frowned.

‘It’s… there might be food shortages. You should make sure you have a lot of canned food.’

‘Oh. Um, I have a bit.’ She shrugged.

‘Look, I’m going up the road to the shop, do you want me to grab you some?’

‘Really? That’s nice of you. I don’t know what you should get, soup maybe. They won’t eat tuna. I’ll just go and get you some cash.’ She went inside. The kids looked up at me.

‘Snow!’ said Zadie. She had pink mittens on. Her brother didn’t have any gloves on. He had a trail of dried snot over his cheeks like a slug had wandered over his face.

‘We made a snowman!’ he said and pointed. I had no idea what to say to little kids, so I just nodded and said, ‘Cool’. He seemed pretty happy with that response. He picked up some more snow and ran off down the side of the house. Ellen came back outside and gave me a twenty-dollar note.

‘Do you reckon that’ll be enough? That should be enough.’

‘Sure, I’ll just get whatever I can with that.’

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Say bye-bye to Fin, Zadie,’ she instructed. Zadie waved a mitten at me and smiled.

I have known Mr Starvos, the guy who owns the little supermarket, nearly my whole life. Or maybe it is my whole life. He’s been there as long as I can remember. When I was small, Dad used to take me up the hill to the supermarket on a Sunday afternoon before the footy started on television. He would hoist me up onto his back when my legs got tired. He’d buy me some Wizz Fizz or a bag of mixed lollies. The freckles were my favourite. I used to give the banana lollies to Dad. Them and the lolly teeth – they used to freak me out.

Starvos was open even on Christmas Day, so I figured he wouldn’t let something like a power shortage stop him. Sure enough, the front door was open and he was sitting behind the front counter, the store dimly lit with a few mozzie candles. Starvos was in a T-shirt despite the cold. I suppose that was his winter uniform, in summer he always wore a white singlet. He was rolling a cigarette, which he then stuck behind his ear.

‘Mr Findlay!’

‘Mr Starvos.’

‘What you need today?’

‘Newspaper. Oh and some canned stuff for Ellen. Can you believe the snow?’

‘It is crazy.’ He shook his head and clicked his tongue. ‘No paper I’m afraid. The truck not come. There is not a lot of canned food either; everyone has been buying up.’

He was right. There wasn’t a lot left. The general population did seem to have an aversion to baked beans in barbecue sauce, though. I filled a basket with a selection of soups and canned vegetables. Starvos wrote the prices in a notebook.

‘Eighteen-dollars-twenty, my friend.’

I gave him the money. He bagged up the cans and handed them to me.

I walked back down the hill as I had done so many times, but now the scene was completely alien. I couldn’t quite comprehend the weight of it. When we were little kids we used to ask Dad if it would ever snow here. His answer was a definite no. But on really cold mornings I would still run to the window, half-believing that I would find a scene like in all those American Christmas movies. Miracle on Bellbird Crescent. And here it was. Only it was like someone had leaked brown ink into the snow dome. It was no winter wonderland.

When I got to Ellen’s, the kids’ faces were pressed up against the window and they breathed blooms of fog against the glass. They watched me walk up the front path. I knocked on the door and Ellen answered.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said, taking the bags from me. ‘Hopefully it’ll tide us over. This can’t last that long. They’d have stuff in place, don’t you think? So we don’t run out of food?’

‘I don’t know. I guess if there’s no electricity and all the roads are snowed under…’

‘Yeah. I guess it’s best to be stocked up.’

‘I’ll see you later, anyway.’

‘Okay. And thanks again.’

She shut the door and I turned to walk down the path. Zac was gone from the window, but Zadie was there, watching me. I waved and she waved back, pressing her nose against the glass.

Lokey’s Jaffa-red Datsun was parked at the top of our driveway. I navigated my way carefully down the slope. Outside our front door I took off my shoes, my hoodie and the tracksuit pants I was wearing over my jeans. I left them on the porch and went inside. Lokey was in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal. His shoes had left puddles across the tiles.

‘Dude!’ he said. ‘Snow! Can you believe it? It’s fully awesome.’

‘I can’t believe you drove here, there’s ice on the road.’

‘It was sweet. Bit slidey. I brought my board down.’

‘What? Your snowboard? The snow’s patchy as.’

‘Yeah, but I reckon I could get a sick run down your front lawn.’

Max walked in holding an esky lid. ‘Will this do?’ he asked Lokey.

‘Maxi mum . That’s awesome, dude.’

‘Hey Lokey, can you put your shoes outside?’ I got a roll of paper towel and then reconsidered and put on some washing-up gloves.

‘Who the hell are you, the cleaning lady?’ Lokey took his shoes off and dumped them on the front porch.

‘Fin thinks the snow is poisonous, radioactive,’ said Max.

‘Serious?’ laughed Lokey. ‘How do you know?’

I blotted up the puddles with the towel and put it in a garbage bag, tying the end. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the recommended procedure for nuclear waste management.

‘We don’t know. That’s the point.’

‘But wouldn’t they tell us?’

‘How? There’s no electricity.’

Lokey let out a low whistle and shook his head. ‘Poison or no poison, I’m going to ride your lawn, man.’

‘I’m coming!’ said Max, holding up the esky lid. ‘Toboggan.’

In my mind I heard my mother shrieking disapproval.

‘No you’re not,’ I said.

‘I am!’

‘No, Max.’

Max threw the esky lid on the floor and stormed to his room, slamming the door theatrically. Lokey was pissing himself with laughter.

‘You are hilarious,’ he said. ‘As if it’s poisonous.’

‘I saw an anti-terrorism website once. It went through the dangers of radiation.’

‘Dude, who the hell looks at anti-terrorism websites? Anyway, someone would have told us. It was on the other side of the world.’

‘I’m telling you. I have to look after Max, otherwise I wouldn’t care.’

‘Hey, where’s Kara?’

‘You’re obsessed.’

‘Admit it, Fin, she’s totally hot.’

‘You’re mentally disturbed.’

‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t know. She and Dad didn’t come home last night. Maybe they stayed at Kara’s mum’s. Maybe there’s ice on the road. I don’t know.’

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah.’ We both stood there in the space left for some sort of meaningful exchange. We didn’t fill it.

‘Heard you had a little study date with Lucy Tenningworth yesterday.’

‘Yeah. I dunno if I’d call it a date… Was kind of interrupted by the whole nuclear disaster thing.’

‘She is way out of your league, man.’

‘Thanks for your vote of confidence.’

He grinned. ‘I mean, are you sure she’s not using you to get to me? I am pretty popular these days.’

‘Again, your belief in me is amazing.’

‘Well, dude, I’m going to go ride your lawn. Watch from the window, you don’t wanna get poisoned.’