It is Friday night and my sleep dissolves and resolves with the rain on the roof. Waking to silence means that at 5pm tomorrow my sister's wedding will take place in the Gleniffer Community Church, beside Never Never Creek, at the gateway to the Promised Lands. Her now fiancée took her there years before to show off the magical places of his childhood. She said at the time, "this is where I'd like to get married." Which I'm sure caused his stomach to give a sudden lurch because they would have been about 22 or 23. However, his courage did not fail him and, years later, they are tumbling and rushing towards the altar with the same unstoppable tumult as the rising floodwaters of the Bellinger River. Waking to torrential rain on the tin roof means that tomorrow will be spent watching those floodwaters, preparing contingency plans and finally making a call between the planned wedding and reception and whatever plan B can be put together at a couple of hours notice.
To the north lies a charming flower strewn chapel in a glade, tables and chairs covered in stiff white linen, place cards laid out, glassware, cutlery and alcohol chilling in ice-filled eskies. To the south are eighty guests, a groom and a bride. To the east is the mighty pacific, pulled by the moon into high and low tides capable of draining the floodwaters away or pushing them back over the bridge and to the west a massive low pressure system and a catchment area designed like a giant water-slide funneling into my restless sleep.
Rain to silence is running at three to one.
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