I’m driving home from work the other night, like I do every night. Damn this driving, the train was so much better. Apart from the falling asleep and waking up with a start and realising everyone is covertly staring at you. THAT part is much better in a car. There’s no one to stare when you fall asleep at the wheel.
Anyway. We’re stopped at some traffic lights, all lined up like drones. I am looking up at the sky – it was dusk, and really pretty. The sunset was just filtering through the elms on Dandenong Road, making even that car-infested horror a nice place to be. When … I SAW it. It is embedded on my memory, scarred deep into my retinas. It was CLIMBING ONTO one of those thick power lines that cross the road. It was GRIPPING the power line with its pinchy little feet and SCRABBLING across the wire, 10 feet above four lanes of stopped traffic. Its long thick bony TAIL was sticking out to balance its DISEASE-ridden body. The whole power line was SHAKING with the motion of its ILL-BEGOTTEN journey.
All I can say is, I hope to God it was a ring-tailed possum. If Melbourne can spawn RATS that big, I want to go HOME.
