Wave Dreams 2

In recent years other dreams of rising seawater have impressed me deeply with their lucidity. In most, the coastal lands are covered to a depth of fifty or sixty metres when conditions have stabilised.

            Another dream begins at the sands of Bondi Beach; strolling on the raised concrete promenade that skirts that unremarkable yet famous crescent of sand in bright afternoon sunlight, I watch the Pacific waves break and recede. As each wave breaks, the ocean recedes a little less and each new wave rolls a few feet further up the beach, a tide rising swiftly before my eyes. I stand and stare for the time it take five or six waves to break, until it’s certain that the ocean is creeping, step by step, toward me.

            Then I turn and hurry up the grassy hill behind me, not quite running; the myriad people in the park and on the Parade full of traffic are going on with their lives, routine or interesting – only a few of the people on the beach itself have realized what’s happening, and for many of them it’s already too late.

            I cross the busy parade and see a bar full of people relaxing and partying in the warmth of the afternoon. The front of the building is all glass, facing the million dollar view, but it’s obvious none of the patrons have noticed what’s happening. I turn to look back at the sea - which has already swallowed the beach and is starting to climb up the concrete retaining wall – and decide to warn the people standing an oblivious metre from me, carousing in their fishbowl. We’re fifteen or twenty metres above sea ‘level’ and it seems I’ll have time, so I enter through the side door and hurry to the unoccupied stage, where I manage to boom “Look!” loudly enough to be heard. “Look at the sea!”

            In a drunken haze, scores of tightly saronged women and loosely togged men turn to the large slab of plate glass separating them from the wind blowing onto the eastern edge of the continent. The stand, mouths agape and motionless, at the sight of the sea walking up the hill toward us, step by step, wave by breaking wave, until it has quickly crossed the road and is gently breaking on the glass itself. And still they stand there as I back out of the rear of the building, yelling “Get out now!” and “Run!” to the deaf horde. They begin to turn as the water reaches above their heads, sloshing on the plate glass and turning the light green.

            By then I’m out of the building on the way uphill. The highest hill in Sydney stands before me.  It dawns on me that this is what it would look like if the land itself were sinking. Eye wake up.

 (see http://www.geocities.com/r_ayana/AdrenlineRush.html for information about our unstable planet.)

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