The Water Takes
by Sarah Walker
Summit Books
It is always such a shock to see on the news that cars and buildings are disappearing into random sinkholes, and these incidences are becoming more common. In recent months, this includes a massive hole on a football field in Melbourne’s north-west and a crater in the middle of the street in Adelaide’s inner-south.
There are both environmental and man-made reasons for these suburban sinkholes, but evidence has linked sinkholes to climate change, including extreme weather such as droughts and floods.
Melbourne-based writer Sarah Walker, who is interested in how disaster impacts our lives, has created an apocalyptic speculative fiction where puddles in the garden become pools, and pools develop into bottomless sinkholes.
Pam is in her mid-seventies, her health is declining, and she is afraid of dying alone as water continues to flood her garden and sinkholes keep appearing all around her. The only brightness in her days is when the neighbour’s 10 year-old daughter Charlotte comes to visit.
In her mundane days of widowhood, Pam spends most of her time recalling episodic incidents from her life and observing the immediate world around her. Recent memories are of her husband watering the garden shortly before he died, but memories of her father’s violence are also ever-present.
When disaster strikes close to home, Pam is left to care for Charlotte. Pam mused, “A little kid, frightened, surrounded by things she didn’t understand. And an old woman worth less than nothing. What a pair.”
Pam was clueless and considered herself to be devoid of maternal instinct, and a wave of nausea came over her when she promised to keep Charlotte out of harm’s way. Was it possible that the meek would inherit the earth?
No help was coming and nowhere seemed safe, but there were rumours of a meeting place where help would be available. So the mismatched pair – consisting of the jaded older woman full of sarcasm and the young girl brimming with innocence and hope – undertake a journey into the unknown.
Lezly Herbert
