The roof was shingled. It slanted back from the ridge, steeply. Each oval shingle was of wood thin as bark, strong as the seasoned oak beams beneath, clear as glass. Each was no bigger than a child’s hand. The shingles overlapped like appliqué on a ballgown, ending at the guttering in a wavy border. The roof was blue. Below it, the house creaked in the night.
The shingles had a shadow retreating up them. They lightened. They caught, with golden sparks. Cresting the mountains, the blue Brindabellas, was a blazing, stark aureole. A steady rhythm, quiet, made Stan turn his pink face into the early glow on the pillow. He stretched out his flabby legs under the covers. The bed creaked. Dreaming, he felt the disorientation of waking in a strange bed. Yet he’d slept in it for years. The feeling was so exceptional that he half-woke and lay still with his head in the sun-puddle, trying to focus on the unreal shadow-play on his closed lids. The rhythm of the house grew; not just a response to the day’s warmth – perhaps a tremor? A rumble too prolonged for thunder – earthquake? Hardly, he yawned, floating back to sleep. No quakes in Canberra. Plane? Motorbike? Goldfish farting? No. Morning, anyway, and the sun was peeping over the mountains.
He opened an eye. The window was awash with coloured flame, like a huge stained glass transfer. Hot, he shoved back the doona. Lovely dawn. Yet something was wrong. He yawned once more, and rubbed his gritty eyes. A cooking smell; someone up? The tremor worsened. A bit apprehensive, but knowing it would soon all be perfectly plain, even enjoying the mystery, he lowered his hands for a proper look. Only the ever-sharpening day. The day. No birds. But the restless cockatoos were shrieking elsewhere, over the rising roar.
A plane, maybe, flew overhead. He sighed, yawned, widened then screwed up his eyes, pushed his thatchy flaxen hair out of them, farted, sniffed, wished his glasses were on the bedside table, longed for a cigarette that would not make him cough, burned for a glass of water as his mouth tasted like a grate. The clock said 5 : 0 : 20 AM. Another workday. He extended his legs again, having drawn them up from the cold nether wastes of the bed.
Now there was a flourishing heat on his toes. Time slowed. He luxuriated in a soft palm, safe in bed. The bed was creaking on its own. He got worried.
He sat up.
The sun had risen, all right. The blue tiles let in brightening shafts of it; for an instant he shivered with childish awe. Then the breath caught in his throat. His brain sought refuge in the lingering dream of disorientation, too late. For the sun was climbing, like a far-off burning city above the dusk-blue Brindabellas in the west, and the howling flames and nuclear wind were the last things he would ever know. He fell onto the floor trying to get up, thinking it must be Jill in the kitchen, but suddenly it didn’t seem to matter any more.

The End