don't look too closely

(photo from smh, by Chris Button)

We woke to Armageddon, which was much more red than we'd anticipated. I pulled the covers back over my head before deciding that if the world was ending, I wanted to annoy my parents one more time, so I headed downstairs and hijacked the kettle before them. The sky was reminiscent of the red hair I used to have, and the wind was a Baskerville hound. It was terribly dramatic for six am. So I went back to bed, and dreamed that Tom Baker and David Tennant were having a light saber battle in the dust. If this is how I go, dreaming of Dr Who, then it's probably not all that bad. I thought. Eventually I decided that even if it was the end of the world, I should probably go to my classes and make a real go at a final last stand. By the time I left the house, the sky had gone from neon orange to a sherbet colour. The wind was ferocious, but me being me, I lifted my head and said "PAH! This is nothing, for I have been to Iceland, and ye gods, wind that can knock you over when you're carrying a 15kg pack is real wind! This is sissy wind!" Before narrowly avoiding being sent to my death via car-splat. I must remember to put my glasses on before I leave the house. The walk to the station was like being in a spaghetti western - my hand kept straying to where my gun holster should have been, except I had chosen not to wear it that day. It clashed with my polka dot skirt.

By the time I was in town, every second person I saw was wearing a face mask. I myself was busy coughing to get the dust out of my mouth, unsuccessfully. It was eerie. And then of course, human nature ruined it when I heard a man demanding to know when his office would be cleared of the dust. The wind whipped around my shoelaces, and I read some G.G.Marquez for my American History Class.

By one o'clock, the sky was clearing. Alan told me about some of his neighbours, who've locked themselves in the church, praying for Judgement Day. Someone had organised a protest to do with Climate Action and Change. The wind was still roaring, tangling my hair in impossible knots. We talked about witches and Freud in gender studies, the image of scared old men cutting the breasts off women sending chills down my spine. I gave up dealing with the library and bought the textbook I've been trying to use for my Fitzgerald essay. By the time I left uni, the sky was dark, my lips were chapped, my eyes dry, all of me dusty.

I felt much better. I think it's because finally something happened that wasn't my fault, or my doing. Or maybe it was the threat of the end of the world that made me get over myself a bit. Maybe it was the brilliant article on women and tattoo aesthetic that I'm reading, or the fact that there are only four more media tutorials that I have to suffer through. Whatever. The point is, we woke up to Armageddon, but we go to sleep with one more day.