The sun hangs at the peak of the sky, all day. You turn on the weather report: it promises rain tomorrow. You know this is a lie, because yesterday, they promised rain for today. They are just trying to be kind.
The temperature swells to over 41 degrees. The schools are supposed to send the children home to safety, but they can't. All they can do is shelter in the classrooms and pray the thermometer stops ticking upwards.
Night finally falls, but you cannot sleep. Light shines in through your window, otherworldly colours projected onto the vast, hooked sails of the Opera House. You close the blinds, but it does not help. You shouldn't be able to see that thing in the harbor, not from your home. In the morning, it is gone.
Sweating, you buy fruit from the Korean grocer shop under your apartment block. He is sweating. His fruit is sweating. The walls are sweating. At home, you leave the your shopping on the counter. When you turn back, it has all dried out. You have raisins and sundried tomatoes for lunch, desperately missing the sweet, wet taste of fresh fruit.
Alcohol is the only liquid, other than spilled blood, that seems to stay cold for long. Cans of beer double as ice-packs, half-full bags of goon as pillows. You are desparate, drunk, and ashamed of yourself, but you are cooled. For now.
There are almost no smells left. Everything is baked dry. Children gather in the streets, crushing and pulping jacaranda flowers underfoot, releasing a fleeting, sweet scent. Nobody wonders too hard how those trees keep on growing, spreading. Nobody asks where the missing children are.
The weather report gives in, and predicts a day of sweltering heat. You awake the next day to torrential, sideways rain. Colour and heat leeches from everything, until you are begging for the sun once more. As the clouds obligingly clear, you swear you can hear laughter from the harbour.
The first inch of Bondi Bay water is almost boiling, but the water below is deathly cold. At first, it is a relief. Soon, your muscles begin to seize, and you realise you must turn back to shore. A ring of weaving, swaying bluebottles slowly emerges from below, encircling you. They do not want you to leave.
People say drop-bears are only a legend. They repeat the obviously false stories to tourists. Desperately, you try to warn them, but they laugh.
One day you decide to leave. You pack a bag of cider and ice, and head out. Every bus loops back to the city. No taxi driver knows what 'out of the city' means. Walking, your flip-flops begin to melt. The further you get from your home, the hotter it gets. You collapse, only to wake in your bed. There is definitely laughter coming from the harbour.
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