I hold her close against the static. Behind her back, on the shelf next to the bed, the radio spits and squalls, a storm of white noise interspersed with precious little information. We keep it on, as it's our lifeline, a communication with the world beyond.
The wind picked up yesterday afternoon, howling through the trees in a blaze of furious banshee joy. We huddled together beneath our summer duvet and our glass roof, wishing we'd taken the advice of the architect and put steel mesh over the top, however much it would have detracted from the view. Glorious as it is to see birds wheeling overhead - to watch a squirrel bustle over above you, seeing the pale flash of its exposed underbelly as a tacit admission of submission - the sight of a broken branch whirling through the air, spiralling to a sudden, noisy halt above your bed is an unexpected and unwanted wake-up call. We lay together, stunned for a moment, as the branch scraped twisted wooden fingers across our heaven-lit sanctuary and threatened to join us in our bed.
We'd been expecting a high tide. The town, that is. We do not live alone, in perfect solitude, although at times that would seem almost like heaven. Heaven, I once mused in an only slightly-drunken moment, can't be anything like the Talking Heads describe it. Time gone past, a woman I loved adored this song. I cued the cassette up one day, waiting alone in the car, so that when she got in and turned the engine key 'Heaven', by Talking Heads, would play. She didn't kiss me, but she thanked me all the same. And we always focused on the wrong part: Heaven, heaven is a place, where nothing, nothing ever happens.
My beloved, also only slightly-drunk, accepted this, and I continued. Everyone is trying to get to the bar, David Byrne sings. Trying. Imagine that as heaven: trying to get to the bar, but nothing... nothing ever happens. I think she understood.
The waters rose, of course, whipped into lynch mob frenzy by the wind. We're not flooded out, but we're imprisoned by a saltwater moat, sharing this hallowed ground with our three neighbours. The housing estates are just above the flood plain, but we're cut off from those. There are one or two fools, whose work means more than life. They splashed off in a small yellow dinghy some time ago, and from the lounge window we watched them upturn near the old railway bridge. It wasn't deep, and they refloated the dinghy and set off once more. Fools.
We return to bed, hoping for good news. My beloved is warm, and I hold her close against the static from the radio. Perhaps good news will come soon, but behind her back, on the shelf next to the bed, the radio seems to defy us with little spits and squalls, a storm of white noise interspersed with precious little information. We keep it on, as it's our lifeline, a communication with the world beyond.
In the meantime, in this heaven, this place where nothing ever happens, we hold each other against the cold and stare blankly upwards for fate to strike.
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