If you want to understand my alter ego, you need to go back to her conception. You see this crucial moment in her life happened on a secluded spot on a riverbank in the Australian Outback. It was late spring. The river was lazily weaving its course through the yellow plains, thirsty for the summer rains. A thousand stars shone overhead; tiny diamond studs sewn into black canvas. The moon was full and round like the belly of an ancient fertility god. The night’s balminess was tempered by a breeze, which also kept the midges and mosquitos at bay.
There weren’t any human souls, except those of two young lovers, or any signs of habitation for miles. Though, the night was hardly quiet. Its sounds were more like an opera: the river burbling and the breeze rustling in the leaves of the eucalypts and through the long grass, accompanied by an animal chorus. There was a male koala loudly grunting his mating call from a nearby eucalypt. This was interspersed with hoots from an owl. If you listened carefully, you might have heard a wombat rummaging in the undergrowth. Against the moonlit darkness, kangaroo shapes could be seen, large, male red bucks and smaller blue females.
It could be thought the scene was romantic. Are you sure? Not so, this was the fishing hole of my alter ego’s parents. As it happened, the fish weren’t biting that night, not a single one. It was like they had all swum downstream. This was the story my alter ego’s father told, ignoring her embarrassment, at her twenty-first birthday party.
My alter ego believes the River Deity cast a spell on her parents that night. It imbued her with its spirit. She is like it. She cannot settle in one spot for too long, rolling along just as a river does. This urge to be free is something embedded in her psyche that she can’t explain nor tame.
Her family nicknamed her Storm because her life seems to be governed by storm cycles. After her life has travelled in one direction for a while, the metaphysical clouds will amass around her without warning. Nobody else will see the storm on her horizon either. Suddenly, the clouds will burst with the most unexpected opportunity falling upon her. She’ll be drenched by the utter chaos of the storm and be blown hither and thither whilst she quickly pulls herself together for this change of direction. The River Deity has told her it’s time to move on. Would you anticipate that somebody would telephone you unexpectedly with a job located on a remote island in Papua New Guinea? Is Ethiopia high on your wish list of travel destinations? Would you walk on top of a live volcano? Have you ever thought you’d smell the rancid breath of a wild lioness? Would you have any advice on how to fend off sexual overtures made by Egyptian taxi drivers?
So, please join my alter ego, Storm, on the irregular paths her life has travelled.
If you wish to read Storm's stories, the collection, 'Don't Judge the Kitten Heels', is available on Amazon.
