Black Sunday - Fiction - Part 5 of about 7

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This is a monologue. You need to imagine an Aussie bloke standing in front of you telling you his story. The photo has nothing to do with the story. Black Sunday - part 5 I take off after Arnie. He’s charging down the driveway. The lump of wood collects a fancy flower-pot with mosaic butterflies all over it. I have visions of all six of these smashing but the cat chucks a left and heads across next door’s lawn where Gary is on his hands and knees installing his retic. We don’t have a fence between us and the moggy and Arnie streak across the newly dug trenches. The wood catches in a loop of hose and the retic pipes erupt, kinking in all directions. Gary lets out an anguished bellow. I try to apologise as I go past. There’s a bit of a fence across the front and the cat does a quick right turn out the gateway, the wood catches on the gate post and Arnie nearly does a backflip. How he doesn’t break his neck I’ll never know. The rope breaks and Arnie is off again. There’s a four wheel drive coming up the road. It does a big swerve to avoid Arnie, sideswipes Gary’s ute which is parked on the verge and demolishes his wheelie bins, shoving them into our bins which concertina up against the front of the Hyundai. The smell is something else. ‘Cos I forgot to put the bins out the first night Karen was away. The driver of the Patrol is an old guy and he’s just sitting there, gasping and staring out the shattered windscreen. I can’t get the driver’s door open. I shout and bang the door but he just sits there. By now Gary has hobbled across in bare feet and has the passenger door open. He’s a nice bloke, Gary. Doesn’t say anything about his ute, just starts talking calmly to the driver. Ben has also turned up and Mrs Kafoops. She’s busy punching numbers in her phone. I’m surprised she knows how to use a mobile but ‘000’ isn’t too hard I guess.