dawn

I’m up at three, a victim of the disease gradually invading my body. A dry cough jolts me around under the doona. If I sit too long the head clogs so I keep moving to keep it at arm’s length. I pack and repack my small case for Adelaide several times. It keeps me pacing round the house through the wee hours. At six I summon the JRT out into the pitch dark for a pre-dawn walk.

Were he not predominantly white, I’d have no idea where he is. The sky is black and starless; the trees thrash in the gusty northerly. The traffic lights at the highway hundreds of metres up the road are the only lights to pierce the dark. 

I stand stump-still in the dead centre of a huge park; four football rectangles occupy it in winter. A fingernail moon reclines on the silhouetted treetops in a blank expanse of greying sky below fire-tinged clouds. Shepherds’ warning. It’s 23 degrees, a cold change and rain still hours away.

The JRT buzzes round checking smells, occasionally entering the periphery of my night vision.

We continue our diagonal way to the far corner of the park. A six-car caterpillar of square lights containing heads bent over books, papers and screens races past behind the trees and I hear the clanging of the crossing bells up near the station. The dog disappears up a driveway on the tail of an early-morning cat.

Shapes emerge from the murk. The greys lighten and the cracks in the footpath become visible. Colours seep out of the grey. The wind slackens. Tradies’ vans and utes dominate the main road; the side streets are vacant. Silent pedestrians materialise around the station.

Soon I’ll be catching the 7:25 to the inner city three days a week. I wonder when the dog will get his walk. Today or tomorrow is the autumn equinox: the days will shorten more rapidly now. I’ll depart home in the dark and arrive home in darkness too.

The compensation is to see the dawn each day.  

Rock on.