stormy thursday

As I’m sitting here now, the rain that seemed so imminent yesterday has finally begun to fall, amidst flashes of lightning and low rumbles of thunder. The light is a strange cold tone, punctuated by dazzling electric flashes, though the air in the studio is still thick and humid. It becomes so dim, that even though it’s only 4pm, I turn my desk lamp on. The lightning seems to flicker in the air surrounding me, penetrating the walls and windows. I can’t tell what direction it’s coming from; it just seems to pulsate through the air currents, out of focus on the edge of my vision. My skin tingles as if there’s a current running over it. I turn the desk light off again, to experience the storm more fully. The rain gets heavier. I watch as it slides down the slanted widow panes; car headlights move blurrily across the opaque glass. The interval between flashes becomes shorter and shorter; the flickers become brighter, stronger, multiple at a time. The storm must be coming closer.

My camera is filming into space, but I suspect that it misses most of the flashes, since the shutter speed isn’t fast enough. The light has turned greenish now, as if the lightning, becoming so rapid, has bled into the cold grey blue, and thunder seems to be coming from all around… I go outside to watch and water my plants.

 

Filmed the drips onto the plants until the camera battery ran out, and then went for a walk without it. It was bucketing, like a solid wall of water. I hesitated then made a mad dash for the $2 shop on Sydney rd, whose entrance was flooded, with the street’s detritus – dirt and cigarette butts – invading, against the shopkeeper’s frantic mop. A huge sheet of cardboard squelched dirty water when I stepped on it. I bought an umbrella, and walked down the street, splashing through huge puddles and getting splattered by passing cars. At some points the entire road was flooded, parked cars stood with their wheels underwater, and you couldn’t see where the footpath ended and the road began. People at intersections took off their shoes to wade across to the other side, and cars took a wall of white foam with them. At tram stops people waiting huddled under awnings closer than they’d usually be.

The rain let off a little and I folded up the umbrella, to feel the water run down my neck. I turned the corner, past an open car garage, and people running for a bus. A tub of paint and a roller had been forgotten beside a colourful wall, now it’s waterlogged. Turned back through the car park behind Safeway. Cars seemed to be driving more erratically, swerving through puddles and sending up waves of water. Iridescent oil spills blossomed, and I wished I had my camera. By the time I got to the bike path, the sky was becoming clearer again. All the vegetation seemed greener; the flowers on the dill plants looked fluorescent. I picked some, and the smell was rich, aniseedy. Bikes left plumes of water behind them, some riders coasting slowly with their feet up. Down a side street I could see that the entire surface was flooded, from wall to wall, across footpaths. Cars negotiated it carefully, but people splashed across. I thought about walking through too, but wanted to keep going to see if some discarded pot-plants, which I rode past this morning, were still there… (They were, but I didn’t take them, cautious in case they still belonged to someone, bedraggled as they are. Maybe tomorrow...) By the time I got back the studio it had stopped raining altogether, I didn’t need the desk light anymore, and I hung up the umbrella for the next rainy day.