Fireworks

Two nights ago at the inlet, a shotgun or a 308 or something else big boomed into the night. It was early. The sun had just set, I'd lit the fire. Then the cracks of a .22 and the horrible shrieking of an animal, then more gunshots. Selkie slunk under my bed.

This situation freaked me out enough that I took a sleeping tablet that night. I don't do that very often. On my own, and thinking about pig shooters in the capybara swamp near my house was doing my head in. It was too quiet, but for the gunshots and the squealing of dying animals. And I needed the sleep. I thought; 'Stray bullets may miss those who are horizontal.'

I'd promised to drop off some firewood for the Meadow Man who was coming down to stay in his hut. His back is bad and so are his drugs. Nothing is working for him at the moment and so I hoped that a load of firewood would cheer him up somewhat.

He came by yesterday morning, rumbling up the track in his ute, the two brown mastiff bitches stoic on the back tray. I made him a cuppa and asked him about the night's hunting.
'Oh! That was them blokes settin' off fireworks,' he said. 'On the south side of the inlet.'
'But ... what about that noise? That squealing?'
'Well. You know what fireworks sound like. Sometimes, they squeal and shriek.'