When Emma looks down over the city, she can see the flashing red lights of fire engines moving through the streets of South Dunedin. The night sky is darker than usual – some areas of the city have lost power, and there are patches of black where the streetlights have gone out. She watches the progress of the red lights, wondering which street they are on when they stop. Her son’s friend, Eric, lives down there on one of those streets, but at this distance, it’s impossible to tell exactly where the emergency vehicles are headed. 

The rain continues to fall gently, falsely innocuous. The problem is that it has been raining for days without stopping, and there is water running in fast-moving streams down the hills of Kew, St Clair and Corstorphine into the flat basin that is South Dunedin. There is nowhere for it to go from there, and so it rises, flooding the streets, seeping into homes. 

On the news tonight, police urged people not to drive unless absolutely necessary. Two hours ago, her 18-year-old son left the house, got into his car and drove into the city to the university. 

‘Do you really need to go?’ she’d asked. 

‘I’ve got a lab’, he said. ‘It’s worth 30% of my grade.’ He grinned in that way he had that suggested he was invincible even though he was not. 

‘Don’t worry; I’ll be fine’, he said. 

She knows Josh often drops his friend Eric off on his way home. Down there somewhere, he will be driving through the flooded streets of South Dunedin in the dark. 

*

In the Physics Building at the university, Josh is trapped. ‘Temporarily contained’ is a better way to think of it, he tells himself because ‘trapped’ is a dramatic word. He doesn’t want to panic because he knows panicking won’t help. He’s been doing psychology as a minor, and so he knows that when a person is fearful, the stress hormone cortisol floods their brain, making it impossible to think clearly and logically. Thinking clearly is important right now because he has to work out how he is going to get out of here. 

At least he’s not alone. The Year-4 student who’d been teaching the lab brought him and Eric up here to look at a cryogenic vacuum system. Josh had been excited to see it. For weeks they’d been promised the opportunity, but the lab had never finished early enough. Tonight, finally, the Year-4 student, whose name is Ben, had said, ‘Do you want to see it then?’ They hadn’t realised when they entered the stairwell that the door had locked automatically when it closed behind them. 

Josh wishes he’d gone straight home. Outside in the dark, the city is flooding. At intervals they hear the sirens of the fire engines leaving the fire station. When the rain becomes heavier, it thrums on the roof, loud and insistent. 

His friend Eric is biting his nails. When they were at school, Eric always walked in a clockwise direction around the courtyard at lunchtime, no matter which classroom they’d just left, even if it meant going a longer way round to get to the benches. It took a while for Josh to realise that Eric had no control over this behaviour, but they’ve never talked about it. When they’re not discussing assignments, they normally talk about Star Wars or Formula One. 

Josh wonders if he should talk to Eric about Carl Sagan’s pale blue dot. Whenever Josh feels worried, he finds it helpful to remember that image of the Earth taken from space. For him, it puts everything in perspective to know that the entire human race is living on ‘a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam’, but not everyone finds it reassuring. When he’d talked to his mother about it, her face had taken on that strange anxious look she got when she was trying to understand him. It was the same look she’d had when he tried to explain to her the process by which the sun would eventually die: how when it ran out of helium, it would start to collapse. All stars died eventually, just like people did. His mother had looked at him in that anxious way and said, ‘Doesn’t that worry you?’  

Josh’s mother worries a lot. If she knew he was currently trapped in a stairwell, she would definitely be worried. That’s why he isn’t going to text her. And anyway, when he thinks about the pale blue dot, he realises this problem he has of being locked in the Physics Building is miniscule in the context of the entire universe. 

‘The cleaner will be around soon’, Josh says. ‘He’ll let us out.’  

Josh has sort of become friends with one of the cleaners, Luca. He hopes he’s working tonight. Luca isn’t just a cleaner; he’s also a surfer and a part-time baker and a dabbler in website design. He has a multilateral approach to life. He’s tall and lean with blonde-streaked hair and a tattoo of the number 444 on his arm. He spoke to Josh one evening as he was leaving the Physics Building because Josh was wearing a Real Madrid shirt, and Luca is a Barcelona fan. Josh loves football even more than Star Wars and Formula One. When he was at primary school, he did a science project on the physics behind David Beckham’s ability to bend the flight of a football into the net. 

Josh always stops to talk to Luca now when he sees him on a Wednesday night. They’ve developed a friendly rivalry, chiding each other over the football results, over whose team is doing better in the league tables. Once, when Eric had gone home early, Josh had hung out with Luca for a while after the lab.  

‘It’s cool here at night, walking the corridors in the hush’, Luca had said. 

‘Kind of like space’, Josh said. 

‘But with a vacuum cleaner.’  Luca did a mean version of the moonwalk trailing the vacuum cleaner behind him.   

Josh curled up in a chair, listening to the white noise hum of the machine while Luca listened to music in his earbuds. When Luca had walked with Josh on his way out, Josh had told him about his father and about the pale blue dot. 

‘I can see how that might help’, Luca had said. ‘Really sucks though.’ 

Luca seems like someone who doesn’t let things worry him, but Josh knows this isn’t true because he saw him at the climate change march last week. He was carrying a huge placard with a blue painting of the Earth and the words, ‘There is no planet B’ painted underneath in red. Josh had watched from the Physics Building as the marchers went past.  

*

Emma watches the minute hand of the clock approach half past nine. Josh is not normally this late home after his lab. She wonders if she should text him, but she doesn’t want to risk distracting him while he’s driving. She lays down on the floor on her back and practises her box breathing, but she cannot escape the sensation that she is falling through the universe. Perhaps she should find a Brian Cox podcast to listen to while she falls.  

In the months after her husband died, she and Josh had spent hours on the sofa eating popcorn and watching Brian Cox on YouTube.  

‘We are all made of dead stars; isn’t that amazing?’ The professor sounded as excited as a small child left alone in a lolly shop. His big, beautiful mouth curved into a grin. 

‘He reminds me of someone off The Mighty Boosh’, Emma told Josh. 

‘That’s just the accent’, Josh said.  

Emma closes her eyes now. If she cannot see the clock hand, perhaps time will stand still. Underneath her, planet Earth is spinning. It is nothing more than a piece of dust in the context of the universe, but it is a precious piece of dust. 

*

Josh realises Luca might not have made it into the university tonight. He lives near the Ocean Grove football ground on the other side of the city. Josh has seen pictures of the flooded football pitch on Snapchat, looking more like a lake than a sports field. 

‘Let’s try downstairs again’, he says, but when they get to the downstairs door, it is still locked. Ben has texted someone in the Physics Department who ought to have a key, but so far, there has been no reply. 

‘Does anyone have a paper clip?’ Josh asks. 

*

When someone knocks on the door, Emma is unsure at first whether she has been asleep. Did she dream the sound in the same way she used to be woken by her dead husband’s voice at dawn?  

‘Good morning’, he would say, and she would roll over expecting to see him, but there was only the shape of his absence. 

The knock comes again. It is louder this time, more urgent. She gets up from the floor. Could it be the police? Has Josh been in an accident?  

She approaches the door but stops, her fingers on the cold, brass latch. Whatever happens now, her fingerprints will still be there afterwards, evidence of the ‘before’.  

*

Josh has been poking at the lock with a paper clip for a few minutes now, hoping to hear the clicking sound that will mark the unlocking of the mechanism. He’s watched a YouTube video on his phone to show him how to do it, but so far, he’s had no success. 

‘Wait!’ Eric says. ‘Did you hear that?’ 

‘Did it work?’ Josh tries the handle, but the door is still locked. 

‘No, the sound of the vacuum cleaner.’ Eric peers through the window of the door. ‘Your mate’s out there.’ 

‘Luca?’ Josh looks up. At the far end of the corridor, Luca is working the vacuum cleaner, earbuds in his ears. 

*

When Emma opens the door, the man standing there is not a police officer. At least, Emma doesn’t think so. He’s dressed in a long camouflage raincoat and wears big boots. His hair is dripping wet. 

‘Hi’, he says. He hovers under the cover of the entranceway, sheltering from the rain. ‘Did you know you have water running into your garage?’  

*

‘Hey, Luca!’ Luca is a long way up the corridor, and he’s moving in that way he has when he’s in time with the music, directing the vacuum cleaner in long sweeping movements. 

‘He can’t hear you.’ Eric waves but Luca’s back is towards them. 

‘I’ll send him a Snapchat’, Josh says. 

Josh pulls out his phone. He takes a picture of the corridor through the window before moving his thumbs deftly over the keypad. He knows that Luca has received the message when he sees him stop, take out his phone and look around. They all wave wildly at him from behind the window. 

*

Emma’s neighbour, who says his name is Nick, has stacked sandbags along the top of her driveway, which he says might help direct the water away down the street. She imagines it joining the stream that is tumbling down into South Dunedin into some other poor soul’s house, but she doesn’t say anything except a thank you.  

‘I knew you had a lot of stuff in here’, he says, surveying the inside of the garage. The water is not even ankle deep yet. Most of her dead husband’s clothes are packed into hard-cased suitcases, and so there’s no damage done there. The guitars are in hard cases too. The books haven’t fared quite so well. They were stacked in cardboard boxes in a corner of the garage. She lifts one up onto the fridge freezer. Most of them will survive. It is only the bottom layer that will be soggy and will have to be thrown away.  

Josh’s pool table stands in the centre of the garage. He hasn’t played since his dad died, Emma realises now. She remembers him down here with Peter on Friday nights, the murmur of their voices from below as she sat upstairs in the house. The memory catches her off guard. 

‘You all right?’ Nick picks up another box of books and slides it on top of an old trunk.  

She nods. 

‘Not too much damage done’, he says. 

‘How did you know?’ she says. ‘When you said you knew we had a lot of stuff in here, how did you know?’ 

Nick shuffles his feet, picks up another box.  

‘You’ll be taking me for one of those sticky-beak neighbours’, he says. 

She laughs. He’s a big man, tall with broad shoulders, a face lined by life. He doesn’t strike her as the sort to hover like a spy behind net curtains. 

‘I saw your boy carrying the boxes in here. It would have been a few months ago, I guess. I gave him a hand.’ 

‘Oh.’ It was strange how Josh had never mentioned that. They’d done most of the packing together, but there were days when she hadn’t been able to face it, and he’d carried on alone, wanting to get the job done. Neither of them had yet been able to take any of it to the charity shops.  

‘He’s a good lad’, Nick says. ‘Not here tonight?’ 

‘No, he’s at uni. He should be home soon.’  

‘Is he doing all right?’ Nick lifted one of the guitars and placed it on top of the pool table. ‘It’s hard losing your dad. Lost mine when I was 19.’ 

‘He told you?’ Emma doesn’t look at Nick but turns to pick up another box. 

‘He was a bit upset, I guess. Understandable.’  

Emma has only ever seen Josh upset on the day of the funeral. Even then, he’d choked on the tears and apologised. She likes to think that they’re close, but even though he talks to her all the time, it’s always about dying stars or planets or the Earth as a pale blue dot. For months after the funeral, he painted the Earth over and over or drew it in sketch pads with pastels in varying shades of blue. 

‘He’s enjoying uni’, she tells Nick.  

*

‘How are you going to get home?’ Josh asks Luca as they leave the building. ‘Can I give you a lift?’ 

‘I’ll stay with my sister in town tonight, but thanks, mate.’ Luca pats Josh on the back.  

‘Thanks for letting us out’, Eric says.  

‘I couldn’t leave you in there all night, could I?’ Luca laughs. ‘Anyway, Josh would have opened that lock eventually. If I’m ever planning a break-in, I’ll give you a call.’ He laughs again. Josh feels the bubble of a laugh rising up inside him in response. It’s a weird feeling and makes him want to cry at the same time, which is embarrassing. He swallows instead. 

Eric zips up his raincoat and pulls up his hood before they walk outside. Josh doesn’t bother. He wants to feel the cold rain on his face. His car’s parked pretty close anyway. As they walk towards Albany Street, Josh notices the way Eric deliberately sidesteps the cracks in the paving stones. 

As soon as they get into the car, the rain thunders down, heavier than before. Josh has never driven in rain this heavy. He wants to swear but he doesn’t. He can’t let Eric know that he’s nervous too. Eric pulls on his seatbelt and clips it.  

‘I can’t believe we got locked in’, Eric says. ‘I thought we were going to be in there all night.’ 

Josh wonders if it might have been better if they had been. At least the building was dry.  

‘Are you worried about your house?’ he asks Eric.  

‘Nah, mum texted me and said it’s all good’, Eric says. ‘Our street hasn’t flooded.’  

Josh realises he should have texted his own mother and told her he was on his way, made up some lie about getting caught up in a difficult physics problem, but it’s too late now. He’s already pulled away from the kerb. He’s not stupid enough to text while driving.  

The streets are quiet and Josh drives slowly. Even with the windshield wipers on full speed, he can barely see where he’s going through the sheets of rain. 

‘What do you reckon about Liam Lawson’s chances in Formula 1?’ he asks Eric. 

They talk about the Red Bull team and Sergio Perez, but Josh keeps his eyes hard on the road, avoiding the streets where bright orange signs indicate closure due to flooding. Another diversion sign blinks in Josh’s headlights, and he turns down another unfamiliar street.  

‘You can take the next left’, Eric says. 

When they reach Eric’s street, the road gleams under the headlights, slick and wet, but the street is not flooded. Josh pulls over to the kerb. 

‘Thanks Josh.’ Eric gets out of the car and dashes towards his house in the rain. When the front door opens, Josh sees the light appear from inside and then disappear again as the door closes. It’s like the house has winked at him.  

Josh feels the silence of his aloneness in the dark.  

‘You’ve got this’, his dead father says.  

 He looks in the rearview mirror before pulling out and heads towards the hill that leads up to Kew.  

*

‘Oh no.’ Emma picks up the large cardboard panel leaning against the side of the garage.  

‘Something important?’ Nick looks over as he shoves another box on the freezer. 

‘Josh’s art portfolio from high school’, she says. She opens it up and sees how the water has dampened the edges of one of the paintings. The edges of the pale blue dot have run so that the Earth looks more like a raindrop. 

*

Josh puts his foot on the accelerator to get up the hill. As he nears a bend, he sees a plumber’s van parked on the road, its hazard warning lights flashing orange. The headlights of another car race towards him.  

‘Careful’, his dead father says. ‘Slow down and wait. The road is narrow here.’ 

Josh applies the brakes. The other car races past, sending up a spray of water. 

*

‘He’ll be so upset’, Emma says. ‘He worked so hard on it.’ 

*

When he arrives home, Josh sees the line of sandbags along the edge of the driveway, so he parks on the road. The light is on in the garage. He grabs his bag and runs towards it. He hears his mum’s voice and then the voice of a man in response.  

‘Dad?’ he whispers.  

But his father is gone. He knows that.  

He ducks under the half-open garage door and into the light. 

When he sees his mother he hugs her so tight she can hardly breathe.  

2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Shortlist