A galaxy in a heart

My name is JC, Juliana Christensen. I'm hovering somewhere between the ceiling and the floor.

That's me below, my body, comforting Anisa. Mattress on the floor, torch light streaking the concrete.

Anisa curls up in a ball scrunching 'wombie' her toy wombat to her neck. I stroke the hair off her clammy forehead, whispering lies it's Ok, it'll work out. Big sisters are meant to protect young ones, aren't they.

Mum's gone. Dad went out...don't know where. He said to stay and wait and don't open the door to anyone. Don't know how long he's been gone. It's dark except for the LED lamp and torch. My Fitbit's gone blank so the time is anyone's guess. Feels like we've been stuck here for days. I've read the operating manual to the porta-loo for the umpteenth time and learned it by heart. Wish we had half decent books to kill time.

Going over to the boxes... i say to Anisa.

It's echoey in here and eerie. There's stacks of labelled boxes, food, blankets, first aid kit and toiletries. There's even an exercise bike. Every step sounds creepy in this concrete box, I guess I creep myself out. The box marked 'communications' is stacked in the middle of 3. Picturing Dad with his broad back, bending the knees, not the back. I do the same to lift the top box away. The communications box is heavy and it thuds groundward. Following the torchlight inside the box I see there's a laptop, chords, an old mobile phone, old looking radio, walkie-talkie, chargers, batteries for the torches. Something re-assuring about touching these everyday objects. We left quickly and everything else useful got left behind in the house.

Suddenly I've gotta wee, finally using the porta-loo. Listening to the tinkling of water on the rim is reassuring. At least I know how this toilet works. I’ve always been the practical type, so the adults say. A Girl Scout.

It's strange watching my 14 year old body going on below about it's thing. Feels unreal , like watching a movie, without the popcorn and the screen tantrums. How can one person be in two places at once? Anyway it's nice floating in the air without the heavy sack of body. This ease and lightness is cool and feels so different from the hard feelings down there.

Anisa's stirring and sits up, rubbing her eyes . I'm hungry, what's to eat?

Ruffling through the supplies I bring her baked beans, a spoon, and a carton of juice. Anisa wrinkles her nose in disgust, though gives in to cold beans and pops the tin.

Gonna check out some of the boxes, maybe we can find out what's going on and where Dad is. A dry throat as I say these words.Fighting the urge to cry.

Fiddling with the radio helps take the mind away. It squelches and buzzes with static. No use. Switch on the walkie talkie Mayday mayday, any Possums and Kangaroos out there. please respond, Over. The other walkie talkie is still in the box. Useless.

It's a true blue bushfire-proof bunker. Made for the farmer living in the bush. Everything in here to survive a level 5 catastrophic fire. How much air is left, when does it run out? What happens when air runs out? Do you shrivel like a prune, explode or is it implode, like the astronauts in space? Gross. Can radio waves get in and out?

Noticing the activity of my body below I see everything laid out in an orderly line. My hand reaches in for the last item in the communications box. A small metal heart on a gold chain. Never seen this before. Watching myself put this around the neck, the chain long enough to ignore the clasp.

It's golden brown, like an old piece of jewellery.What's that old looking metal that ancient people love- bronze, copper? Delicately patterned with a floral imprint, a lily, a lotus? The heart is rounded, or as Mum would say, voluptuous. Like her. Mum was at work when we fled the house to the bunker.

What's going on outside? I really want to open the door and check. I’ll use my sticky beak to look around inside. In the box a sticky note is stuck. FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY.

Takes a while to prise the heart open. I'm willing the clasp to unlock; its stuck. Typical old thing. Fiddling and tapping the heart against the torch handle. It pops. Mum and Dad greet me; their faces younger and fresh. Mum has soft brown curls she wore before discovering the hair straightener. Dad's grin is cheesy with a clean chin. No grey prickly stubble. A surge of warmth floods my belly and the tears are next. The photos look puckered and the edges puff a little out of the rim. Staring at their images something comes to the surface, something not quite right. The eyes get rounder and glow, green, blue shimmers emerge from their faces like a 4D hologram. The eyes lift off to form a mass of lights, blue, green, red and gold into a whirlpool of light, twinkling and swirling and pulsing. There is stillness in the air despite the movement. silence. No breath, no noise coming from my mouth.

A bunker of Stars, no ground, no above, no future, Just stars now, here now. Colours and infinite specks of light, shimmer in multitudes of directions. The quiet is more real than what led to this moment.

Anisa moves from the mattress and flings the tin to the floor. She's forgotten her shock. The shape of a zero forms from the pulsing lights , a halo. A ring seemingly solid yet see- through, like a torchlight. It's beautiful and what Mrs Demetriou in religious education would say.. a moment of grace .

Anisa walks towards the ring. Wait! I'm shouting though the words get sucked into thin air, no sound comes out. Waving my hands to get her attention, for her to back off.

Then she's gone. The suction coming from within the ring is like a strong magnet. The stars, specks, colours and lights that make the ring pulsate stronger and I feel like my eyes are burning.

A strong peace now. Not scared of the ring. Not scared of a thing. No thing.

JC walks into the zero and I know this is how I end up watching myself from the ceiling, detached from my body yet aware. I wave to my sister across the bunker and she returns a mid air salute.