The Last Summer Ever

Category B: Second Place (2023) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Maya Crombie

I yawned, turned off my phone and readjusted my eyes to the light of the garden. Standing up onto the terracotta pool tiles, my spine crackled like a pop rock. I looked up the backyard. The grassy hill; slanted flower beds cuddling a tangle of pansies, weeds and blush-pink daisies; the back porch; the covered spa that dad never treated. The back door was open. The fly screen, too. I could sense a sticky night ahead. It would be filled with the buzzing of flies, kicking sheets off the bed and dreams of an almost vertical, infinite backyard. I’d wake up looking the part of a plague victim, peppered in mosquito bites that looked like doll nipples.

The house echoed with the slap-slap rhythm of my feet. It was achingly hot. Smothered chatter from the TV melted in from the front room. It warped my attention like my brain was

rotting wood. There was no one else at home; I just left the TV on for comfort. I lay down on my back with my calves up on the leather couch. The lounge room was dad’s domain but, strangely, the man had left the house. Earlier, I’d heard his Jeep growl back to life and crawl down the driveway. My eyes were strained. The characters moved around on the screen as if they were up on the ceiling. My legs had glued themselves to the couch; too lazy and too tired to be bothered to change my position.

I only sat up when the episode ended and the ads came on. I went into the kitchen and drank a glass of water. I was starting to feel the beginning of a headache. I cut up some nectarines (but I could not remove the pip from the flesh) and ate them over the sink so that the juice would drip down there.

I stared out into the backyard and beyond the slope where it dipped down to the pool, like a

mediaeval hilltop castle with a moat; the trees being the distant mountains and kingdoms and villages. I was not king, rather some forgotten prince. I threw the pip into the bin; it was covered in little wisps of yellow and, strangely, made me think of an Adam’s apple – removed from a neck, wet with stringy veins. The front door opened and I heard the heavy footsteps of dad and the jangle of the keys – a modern cowboy. Guns in holsters. Lightning, fire-snap temper. It had been a mistake leaving the TV on (with Cartoon Network blaring) and the crumpled strawberry butterfly lolly wrappers scattered on the floor. But dad didn't say anything. He just marched through the house and upstairs to the master bedroom, where he kept all his loot.*

Later, I drove to the shops and bought some 250ml cranberry juice boxes from the supermarket and I sat out on the curb of the carpark next to my ute. I stared across to where the carpark and the shopping strip merged with the road. I crushed cigarettes in with the crowsfoot weeds and winter grasses and my hands smelled like vanilla ice cream. It was around 5:30pm and my phone was dying and the sky was grey clouds and clinical blue – strikingly electric like a computer in a dark room. I chewed on the straw. I’d gnarled it like a child and tossed it onto the hot bitumen like a child who’d only ever known plastic. I watched some ants dismantle a cockroach and carry its pieces away. I sat alone in the charged electricity and heat of the mid-December humidity. I checked my phone again. Nothing new. I went back home. Exurbia is a barren desert; it is simultaneously sprawling and lifeless.*

Spots of fragrant rain appeared on the pavement as I went inside. My house was familiar in that I saw one just like it everywhere. The roof was asbestos-tiled and covered in lichen. The bricks were beige, with sacs of spider eggs living in the cracks. The front fence had been toppled by a storm and there were no trees in the front yard, which was balding from constant trampling. A row of shrivelled succulents were sitting on the concrete porch like old folks. Some were potted in mosaic pots while others had been left in the plastic they were bought in. A breeze tumbled down from above and cooled the air significantly. I went upstairs to my room. The walls were yellowed and had no posters or frames, save for a National Geographic pin-up about the solar system. Rain crescendoed outside into a storm. Dizzying lights flashed in migraine colours, mirroring the way my laptop illuminated my face. Pellets of water pounded at the iron garden furniture outside.*

It was incredibly still. I had stopped paying attention to the cicadas; their silence became unnerving when I finally noticed it. There was no wind. Only bugs and birds; the sound of planes breaking through the sky. The sunset was frozen in a rich red and the clouds were stuck: paused and thinned-out. But then the sun started to set and the sky darkened, stars emerged. There was a bright light in the distance. It splintered like a crucifix and was getting closer. Nailed on a point. It turned and diminished. It was a plane flashing white and red. A demonic moving star. Planes came and went. I memorised the flight paths. This was rhythmic, this was routine. The sun set at 9pm. I closed my eyes and fell asleep by forgetting about the vastness of it all.*

Then it was days of dreaming. I was worn down by the heat; eyelids dropped like mayflies. The landscape became more grotesque. Figures stalked the highways. Earthquakes happened every night. Billboards advertised heaven and the sun was only up for an hour each day. I lost my guardian angel. The birds flew off towards the stars and marine life retired further down towards the abyssal ocean floors.