Just got the quarterly leccy bill, $522 – that’s obscene when you consider that there are only two adults here and I barely watch TV which apparently is the biggest user of household electricity apart from things like fridges etc.
I was standing outside earlier and the way things are going, it reminded me of a paragraph or two or three from Sinultimata, a short story I wrote (and published so it’s well def copyright) in 2004;
“Echoing sounds of steel shutters bellowed across the darkening sky, as the sun seemed to force its escape on the horizon. Dull streetlights flickered into life, their weak illuminations a direct cause of power being directed to the more affluent suburbs so they could retain their twenty-four hours of daylight and security.
The howling of the security dogs, if one could call them that, pierced the night sky as they crawled from their fortified cages below the suburban houses. These were no ordinary guard dogs; they made the Pit-Bull of the late twentieth century seem like cuddly puppies. Even their owners, safe in their cocoons of steel and cement, never ventured outside while these beasts patrolled the high fenced gardens.
Gone were the days when children played in the streets against a backdrop of chattering women as the sun dipped low in the west. Gone were the days when children could safely walk and play in the streets at dusk, the orange glow of the sun their forever friend and guide – it was a sad day indeed when the government widened the gap between the haves, and the have nots.
Samuel preferred a non-confrontational lifestyle, but it rarely happened that way although his wealthy appearance did help on occasion. His ankle length leather coat and polished boots left him well out of place in this canyon of high wire fences and rabid dogs, but he enjoyed the silence it brought.
Rounding a corner he saw there, in the distance, the nightly group of well-heeled brats as he called them, four teenage boys and three girls – their designer label clothes completely out of place in this area of no name foods and people who threw their new born to their guard dogs to rid themselves of one more mouth to feed. . .
If you want to read the rest, you’ll have to buy the book – maybe it’ll help me pay me leccy bill 🙂
Anyhoo, as far as I’m concerned the Labor party and the Liberal’s for that matter – no let’s make that ALL politicians can go ‘expletive’ ’emselves then base jump from their ivory towers – just do us all a a favour and forget your parachutes!!
