Survivors

I didn’t expect the stink.

We wade through ankle length muck. Mum makes us keep our shoes on, even though we’ll need to scrub them in the creek later, and they’ll take forever to dry, and it’ll mean going barefoot for a few days while they do. And then they’ll probably reek forever of rot and waste and goo.

She says it’s better that than stepping on glass in the sludge and getting an infection.

There’s no access to antibiotics anymore.

We have gloves too. We usually use them to harvest the stinging nettle. It’s full of vitamins and minerals, all the things that keep us healthy, and as long as it’s cooked, there’s no sting.

Today we’re hoping they’ll protect our fingers (from the aforementioned glass in the sludge) while we search our former home for anything of use.

I can’t help but wonder how long it’ll take to get the smell out.

We start with the things above the flood level and work our way down. There’s not much the water missed, and most of that is mouldy and rotten.

We salvage what we can. Somehow the sewing pins and needles haven’t rusted yet, so Dad wipes them carefully and puts them in his pocket.

His computer sits in the corner, the murky brown water line running halfway up the screen the only sign it wouldn’t work anymore, even if there was electricity to run it.

The soggy teddy bears are so filthy as to be unrecognisable, and they bring no sentimental reaction from me, but Mum cries when she finds the family album, pages stuck together, photos so damaged it’s impossible to see the memories they once held.

“Our ancestors lived through hard times, too.” She reminds us yet again. “Bushfires, floods, droughts, plagues. Think about all the tragedies, over all the centuries. If our ancestors hadn’t survived them, we wouldn’t be here. We come from strong stock, all of us. We can survive this. Build something better.”

It’s hard to see ‘better’ when you’re living in a bark lean-to, fighting to keep the fire alive day and night because you know if it dies there’s no lighting it again. But Mum’s faith in this better future is strong, and she pulls us all along with it.

She gets excited over a plastic container in the muck, waterproof and airtight, the small paper envelopes inside dry and safe.

“Seeds.” Mum almost shouts the words as she waves the box at us. “All my veggie seeds.”

When I find my money box she’s pleased about that, too. It’s heavy, even after we drain the water out, and though we can’t get it open right now there’s a can-opener back at camp to open it with, and there must be enough in there to trade with the travelling sales folk for several bags of flour, maybe even some sugar if we’re lucky.

I miss sugar.

I miss chocolate more, but what are the chances there’s anyone out there even making it nowadays, let alone it lasting the journey from the appropriate climate to here?

The tools in the shed are rusted, but there’s a wire brush we can clean them with. A handsaw, a chisel, a hammer. Much more useful than the pocketknives we’ve had to work with so far.

It’s time to go, but something draws me out the back door.

There was a garden here once, lush with flowers and shrubs, the air alive with the buzzing of bees and the singing of the birds; scarlet robins, fairy wrens, eastern spinebills.

I turn to go, and a glint catches my eye.

It’s my grandmother’s heart-shaped locket. Containing an image of her parents, who survived war and depression. When I flick the catch it swings open, photos of my great-grandparents looking back at me from the tiny frames.

Back at camp we spread out our haul… needles to mend our clothes, seeds to grow more food, tools to build a proper house. And a locket, to remind us of the strength in our DNA.

Perhaps we can build something better, after all.