He thought of the Munga —the evil winds of August that carry no rain, only the smell of smoke from distant, self-made fires. He thought of the Cocktail Hour , that sudden, violent shift at 4 PM in the tropics where the temperature plummets twenty degrees in ten minutes, and the sky turns the color of a bruised mango. They called it a “storm.” He called it a heartbeat.
“They want predictability,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “I am not a clock. I am a drum. Sometimes I beat slow. Sometimes I beat fast. Sometimes I stop, and the silence is the most terrifying sound of all.” climate of australia
The old man called himself the Climate of Australia, and he was tired. He thought of the Munga —the evil winds
He sighed, and a hot, northerly wind—a genuine Bradfield —scoured the plains below, lifting a million tons of topsoil into a rust-colored haze. “I am not two things. I am a single, violent act of balance.” Sometimes I beat slow
“That is not cruelty,” he said. “That is the rinse cycle.”