A Memory of Rain

That memory: the staccato drum on the old, corrugated iron roof of the shed, the rivulets forming in dust so dry, it was like face powder, and then, her mouth open as splashes of earthy rain hit her tongue, cold, startling, wonderful. That memory was so cherished – she inhaled these imaginings deep into her heart.

As she filled the Kombi with the few remaining litres of petrol from a battered Gerry can, sweat poured from under the band of her wide-brimmed hat. After five days on the road, she had become accustomed to the salt crust on her skin. She would scrape it off as part of her evening ritual of skin brushing.

It was only the old ones who remembered the luxury of a bath, and the recollection was heavenly but also a painful yearning. You can only really miss what you have known.

At last count there had been no rain for 150 days. Outside the Zone it had been much longer, the sun blistering old freeways so that it was now easier to drive off road than on the arterial network.

With just seven days until her 60th birthday she had seen no option but to go, before the system started its inevitable churn.

She should have planned it better. She should have looked for a partner in crime, another believer – but they were few and far between.

****

Everything had toppled slowly at first. She still recalls the days when summer was just one of four seasons, something you longed for after cold, wet winters and spring tempests.

But slowly summers extended in the southern hemisphere from November to April and then into May and June. The newspapers were full of hottest days on record…month after month, then year after year.

And then it was endless.

Drought-hardy farmers relinquished generational homesteads and headed to the coasts, leaving everything behind on ochre earth, littered with shrivelled crops, sun-beaten trees, and the carcases of more than 90 million sheep and cattle.

Then the fires came, raging for months at a time, taking all in their path, voracious demons rampaging over forests and towns, as cloudless skies turned red hot, then thick with eucalypt smoke in the wake of the disaster.

Gasping for survival - they constructed the Zones for those who could afford to be protected. And they rose up - great domes hugging coastlines around the country with massive desalination facilities attached like umbilical cords from the ocean to the land.

The technicians, climatologists, scientists, and psychologists joined those in charge to develop a Zone environment, cleverly calculating how often it needed to rain inside the dome to maintain a sense of humanity.

In the Zones there were new rules. Free and fair elections went by the wayside 10 years into the big dry. Survival, even if for only the few, was the governing force.

And it was deemed that in this climate emergency, a lifespan must expire in the 60th year of life, to maintain sustainability.

****

In the small kitchen of her single room apartment, she and her daughter stared into their teacups. The tea was weak and shallow.

“Mum,” Sian whispered, “it is only three weeks until your ending, we should plan something, it doesn’t have to be elaborate.”

Quietly and with a brief smile, she marvelled at how quickly the ‘endings’ had become acceptable.

“I don’t want to fuss about it, Sian, it is what it is.”

“But you know Roxy, her father Frank had a fantastic show, the whole family came…they had a band, they made a family film…it was a terrific party. I think he was actually looking forward to…you know…after that.”

“Sian,” she snapped, “No one, looks forward to the ending, that is clap-trap fed to us in the Zone to make things more palatable.

“I’m sure Frank was doing his best. It is lovely to have friends and family together, its not like people have parties for fun anymore,” she trailed off.

“But no Sian, I don’t want anything.

“I will visit you all beforehand, let’s just leave it at that.”

Sian looked desperately disappointed, but she knew better than to challenge or remonstrate any further.

They sipped their tea in silence.

And then she remembered the gift.

Flipping open a box on the table next to her day bed, she clutched the gold locket that had once been her great grandmother’s.

It was worn smooth in parts, her Granny’s initials, barely visible, but it was what was inside that was important.

She flipped open the little gold heart and put it on the table between them.

“Sian, this was your great, great grandmother’s. It was given to her by her fiancée, who fought and died in the Great War of 1914.

“His name was Johnny O’Hara, and he was a farmer. The day he decided to ask my great grandmother to marry him, the drought broke, and he felt some hope for the future. It gave him the confidence to ask her.

“Before he left for the war, he had this made for her as a keepsake. And even though she married someone else after Johnny was killed, there wasn’t a day where she didn’t wear this until she gave it to me. Now I want you to have it.”

Inscribed inside was simply – Remember the rain.

****

Alone in the van, 400 km from the protection of the Zone the heat was crippling. The landscape was bleached hot white and she knew there would be only scant respite when the sun went down.

She didn’t have much longer, but at least she had made it this far. At least this had been her choice.

It was an hour until sunset. She took a tiny sip of water from her drink bottle and lay back on the reclined bench in the back of the van.

She knew her sweat would help to cool her down, if only she was moving, but it was unbearable outside and the thought of moving seemed impossible.

On the edge of sleep, she felt a flush of guilt. She had spent Sian’s inheritance on the van and bribes for the exit police.

For what? An internet conspiracy theory about the inland oasis. A vanity that she should be able to die when she was good and ready. A folly that her life was important, sacred…whatever that meant now.

Her breathing was laboured, but she focussed on it, in an attempt at meditation.

Inside the van glowed orange and gold as the sun dipped under the horizon.

She had turned 60 just after crossing no man’s land, the patrolled space between the Zone and the inland.

She had parked and relished the moment.

She knew that Sian would be questioned – but there was nothing Sian could tell them.

Instead of confiding her escape plan, she had only displayed gracious acquiescence about her birthday ending.

They would search for her to see if she had taken her own life as so many did – inconveniently jumping from apartments in the middle of the afternoon – disturbing, office workers and people collecting their kids from school - tarnishing the sanitised sacrifice the leaders had constructed around a system of “in”voluntary euthanasia for the good of the many.

She had felt an exhilarating sense of victory, knowing full well it was Pyrrhic.

****

She had either passed out or fallen asleep and when she woke it was to a steady drumming sound in her head.

Opening her eyes, she couldn’t tell if the sound was internal or external, but it was familiar, steady, full.

And for a moment her thoughts were dragged back, before the big dry, to a rainy afternoon at the nursing home where her great grandmother, then 98, was holding her hands around a hanky in her lap.

She was all fidgety and flushed before she revealed the locket.

“I have this for you dear, don’t tell anyone I gave it to you – I have nothing for the others you see,” she said hesitantly.

“My Johnny gave it to me, and I could never part with it before now.”

She could see the pain in her grey eyes, she could see she had had enough of it all, she could see she had been ready to go.

Feeling the thin skin of her great grandmother’s hands as she held them and thanked her, she opened the locket carefully and read the inscription.

Oh, she had heard about Johnny before, Granny had spoken of him in hushed tones from time to time, but the locket made him tangible. Johnny was a real boy, not a man, just 18 when he reached his ending…far from home, cut down by German boys in a rain of bullets fired across a French field. He had left, pouring all his hopes of returning into that small piece of heart-shaped gold, sitting in her palm.

She had kissed her great grandmother on the cheek, hugging her for a long time before leaving.

****

Now the sound in her head was louder. Familiar fat drops falling on tin, washing it clean, gathering in all the hot dust as they fell harder and harder on the rooftop…and soaked with sweat, taking in harsh, short breaths, she closed her eyes and drifted, knowing she was one of the last who could remember the rain.