city chick

Sweltering hot car.
Early summer days that cook a body before they've even put a key in the ignition.
Burning, stinking days where you want to live in a cold shower - if the rain water tank held an infinite supply of cold water.

And you know what?
I've run out of water.

There's only that old, yellowed bottle of water that has been rolling around on the car floor. And nobody's going to want to drink that. I mean, there's no way in the world I would want to drink that...

But I'm stuck in the middle of the Outback with no phone (battery's dead - anyway, the sun had baked the screen before I realised that it had been sitting in the open sun for hours. Smart phone. Huh.) No one coming. It's cooler outside the car than in and even then, the only shade is one scraggly shrub that don't even reach my knee.

I'm as red as a lobster, will have peeling skin for days, as well as freckles for months to come and I'm sure I'm going to catch cancer from drinking old water steeped in carcinogens that have leached out from the plastic into the near boiling water. Which is worse? Being roasted like a lizard on the baking red sand now or slowly dying while being attacked from within by my own body?

I really can't decide.

Dave had better notice I'm missing and come find me soon before all that is left of me is either charred flesh or a cancerous mass. I've been out here for 3 minutes already. I can see the gate from where I am, so it should only take him about 10 minutes to come rescue me - if he walks. If he drives, it won't take a moment and I don't want to spend 10 minutes out here in the sun if he can come and pick me up in his dad's air-conditioned ute.

I daren't leave my car. What if a snake attacks me? What if I run out of water before I reach the house? Anyway, my authentic Dolce Garbana sandals would never survive the 500m distance on this stupid red cracked road. How can they call this rutted stretch of dust a road anyway?

Better to wait here for him.

Five minutes now and I'm dying. That bottle of water is starting to look good.