Simi watches as the crowd parts around the solid square of Aneke, heading towards the back of the room. She is cheerful and joking, jabbing comments here and there, punchy as a boxer. She reaches Father Norman and puts out a hand for a towel, the scene caught in Ruan’s torchlight following her from behind. And it’s then. Right then. That everything stops.

The room freezes. Paralysed. Trapped by a guttural, beneath-the-feet roar, that fills every pore.

Simi stops breathing, overwhelmed by this heartbeat. This earthbeat. The groaning shift comes again. It thumps in from outside, growing louder and louder. Rolling like a thousand diggers. Rolling. Rolling. Freeing the sound out of throats. Forcing shouts to fly.

“Marybelle!” Simi’s voice is hoarse with fright. She reaches for her friend, and as she does so the silence comes back, and with it the listening. But now there is just rain, and more rain. The wind has gone.

“Marybelle!” she whispers again, listening for the tearing roar, but it has vanished.

“What was it?” comes the reply. Simi has no idea. She stands still as pillar, ghost-frozen, waiting for the next shuddering sound, but it never comes. Instead the room fills with questions.

“What the …?”

“Where was that?”

“ … outside the front …”

“What was it?”

“Landslide. Must have been. Maybe some of those rocks.”

“No man, my car’s got all my fishing gear in.”

Rudd’s torchlight picks over the room.

“I think it was some kind of slip. Somewhere near the carpark. Sounds like the wind’s dropped so I’ll go check it out with Tonderai and Innocence. Meanwhile if we could get a few search parties going please, while it’s quiet. Main thing, nobody go alone, and please get back here ASAP.”

“Sure.”

“Okay guys, we’ll do the bar area.” Jacobus waves a torch over his head.

“And any volunteers for the squash courts and round there, come over to the doors please,” calls Hansie.

Simi watches the crowd shift and split, as the search parties begin to form.

“Don’t hang about,” shouts Steve. “This cyclone is not done yet.”

“Ja. Steve’s right,” Rudd shouts to the disappearing torches. “Don’t hang about. The doctor will be up here. That okay Tim?”

“Okay. Reckon I can stay put.”

Slowly the groups organise themselves, and start to leave. Simi moves a little closer to her friend, and as she does so, Marybelle swings her torch beam around, and Simi has to put out a hand to block the light.

“You okay Simi?” Marybelle asks, then suddenly her voice changes. “No … what’s that?”

“What?”

 “Simi!”

“Can’t you put that down. It’s too bright.”

“No. Look. Look at you. Why didn’t you say? Here.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“That. When did you do that?” Marybelle reaches for Simi’s raised hand, and turns it palm upwards into the light.

“Oh no …,” says Simi, noticing the red gash that frays from her thumb down to her wrist. “I have no idea when that happened.”

“Must have been when you fell over by the doors.”

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

The urgent shout stabs into Rudd. He grabs at a metal roof support with one hand and, with the other blocking the rain from his eyes, searches for the cause of the alarm. But all he can see is rain, and the slippery shift of water licking down the stairs above him.

“What?” he shouts.

The reply comes, but it too is ripped to shreds by the wind, and cannot warn Rudd of the bulk he sees suddenly, turning and tipping past Tonderai and Innocence. Horrified he watches the shape seesaw down. Twisting closer. Gathering speed. Becoming a table. Four legs jabbed up into the dark.

Rudd braces for impact, breath thumping. But there is no collision. Instead the table stalls, close enough to touch. He stretches an arm towards it, but as he does it breaks loose again. It swings round, end first, its momentum missing him by a shadow. He watches it surge past, and block to a stop against a bedroom wall below, then he turns and pushes upwards, the pounding rain and adrenaline forcing him on, his legs suddenly strong. He reaches the verandah just behind the others, and follows them back through the broken doors, into the dry of the lodge. He is soaked and desperate for news of Fred and Bernard, but all that meets them are questions.

“Hey Rudd …”

“ … any sign?”

“Where are they?”

“What’s it like out there?”

“What’s the damage?”

The three do not reply. Instead they weave a path back through the impatient crowd to the reception area where Father Norman waits with towels. Rudd passes a few back to Tonderai and Innocence, then burys his face in the rough oblivion of the dry cloth. He stands for a few seconds, letting it soak the damp from him, then he rubs the towel up and over his hair.

“Nothing?” Jen asks.

“Nothing,” he replies.

“You checked their room?”

“The three of us did Jen. We searched all the rooms.”

“But where are they?”

“I don’t know. I promise we’re going to keep looking.”

He passes the towel back to Father Norman, and then sits down on the chair he had stood on earlier and begins to unlace his shoes.

“What’s it like out there?”

Rudd looks up to see Steve looming over him.

“Bad,” he replies, shaking the water out of one shoe, and then the other. “It’s the loose stuff you have to watch. We nearly got wiped out by a table.”

 “That’s cyclones for you.”

 “Hey Steve. How do you even know it’s a cyclone?” someone challenges.

“Yeah Steve … this is Zim we’re talking.”

Rudd jumps to his feet.

 “Steve’s right …” he shouts, voice taut.

“Hey speak up, Rudd. Can’t hear you back here.”

Rudd climbs up on to the chair, blinking as torch beams bear down on him. Slowly the voices fade away, leaving only wind rattle. Rudd clears his throat.

“Guys this is bad, and likely to get worse. This is a cyclone. It’s the edge of the one in Mozambique. The really bad news though – Fred and Bernard are still missing. We’re going to need help.”

“Did you see Aneke out there?” someone calls.

“Aneke?”

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023