My Work Place

I work in what I call a basement. Actually it's the underside of a traditional Queenslander house- those ones on the big stilts. There are no walls, just a cage of white-picket fencing affixed to the cement pilons that hold the house over my head. Throughout the day the light cuts in at differing angles. Wind rattles at the tattered plastic sheeting.

I can hear and feel footsteps over my head, and voices through the wood. Also, on a less romantic note, the comings and goings of the pipes to the kitchen and bathroom. This gets annoying, but then I can always wander out into the backyard. Out there we've got the biggest trees in the whole block; a massive eucalyptus that cannot be removed by Government order. I do my little loops out there, with the spiders. In winter they wrap their webs on the ends of branches, sort of like little socks.

 I do my writing at a black Ikea table which is now bowing at it's centre. I sit on a royal blue rug. It's laid over concrete since in the winter it get's awful cold here. To my right, absurdly, is my brothers Lamboghini-esque sports car. To my left and behind is a wall of books, printers, wires, stacked cutlery, trinkets from overseas, kids toys, plastic animals, cintage liquor bottles, a gas canister, and car-washing stuff. This romance of clutter is diminished by the two towers of Tupper-wared possessions nearby. Thats incase it floods down here, so our possessions will float away, rather than sink.

It's flooded before. The entire place I'm writing in now, right up the floorboards above my head. Mum and I sat on the front steps watching the inky water devour the white-chip wood. It stopped that night, but only just. Our plastic encased stuff bobbed up and down in the mess of it all.