The door you step through

The door you step through to enter the courtyard. The concrete courtyard, radiating warmth from the sun still, in the early evening. The air, thick as it always is in North Fitzroy, with the slightly too-sweet smell of Jasmine. The year, 1989. The air, thick with the smell of jasmine, as it always is in North Fitzroy. You recall it later when you move to the inner west. There, it smells at first like something is not-quite-right. It smells like that for years, on and off, depending which way the wind is blowing or what’s going on at the local sewerage farm or industrial waste site. The door you step through in 1989 is the door of the outdoor toilet in a concrete backyard, Fitzroy-style. The door into the house blown shut by the jasmine-scented breeze; slammed; locked. The window into the kitchen providing a view of the kettle, still right where you put it, on the stove, two minutes earlier. The still-warm concrete on which you stand and watch it, boiling furiously.