Tuesday. Sunny and hot. Most of the wasps are dead. Corpses float in orange pop bottles like confetti in the rain. No one cares. Life is brutal on Read Island and you have to be lucky to have even that. Those unlucky enough to be drawn into the bottle have been released from their pain by their own desires and weaknesses. We are all weak and nature always wins.

That is one of the reasons I claim for not listening. I am trying to survive out here and I can only safely do one thing at a time now. I can’t listen to Sal natter on while I am rolling a log or I’ll crush my fingers. Well, that is what I tell her, anyway.

“Are you listening?”

“No. What did you say? No! Wait! I am rolling a log and need to concentrate. Tell me whatever later!”

You think I am kidding? Well, I am. Kinda. But I have noticed that as I age, my ability to multi-task has been reduced somewhat. In fact, I can’t do it. For me to do anything these days requires me to focus on the task-at-hand. It was never thus. I used to juggle the world while driving and eating a burger at the same time but not anymore. I am now limited. Handicapped. First Nations people would call me ‘Mr. Challenged-by-two-things’.

To be fair, I think I can do two things at once if I concentrate and care about it. I think, actually, that I could do three things at once if I was concentrating, cared and was curious. But, honestly, at 64 how often are you gonna find something that you are interested in and that you care about? At the same time?

Except for things like your own fingers.

Survival still gets my undivided attention.

Oh, wait! ‘So does dinner’…………and that is what Sally was on about……gotta go……