The midnight silence was abruptly curtailed by a shock of sound. A noise indicative of an approaching stampede emanated from the tin roof above. After hours of relishing a gripping narrative by headlamp in the comfort of a cozy bed, my golden solitude was interrupted. Maureen the ‘manageress’, a bastion of meticulous preparedness for the CWA Outback Mothers Memorial Hostel, had lost all her usual composure; she charged in, nightie flying. As she burst into my room, I put down my book like a guilty teenager busted in the act. Her voice radiated with a frightful fervour, “The pipes have burst, I just know it!” I jumped up out of bed to turn on the lights, and help Maureen locate the leak. The wavering voice of my elderly neighbour called out tremulously through the wall, “What’s
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