We’re pleased to announce the winner of the May WWWC: Julia Archer! Responding to the prompt ‘floral emblem’, Julia’s ‘The Watcher at the Window’ sees a group of neighbourhood nosy parkers given the shock of a lifetime.

Read Julia’s winning entry below.

The Watcher at the Window

Today, the council came for the hoarders.

An excavator first, followed by two flatbed trucks rumbling under skips chained down. The skips must have blanched at the sight. They didn’t have a hope.

I watched from my upstairs window, coffee in hand.

Other neighbours watched from front yards. Curtains twitched. Dogs went off their brains. Neighbours yelled at them to shaddap! It wasn’t always their own dog they yelled at.

The truck engines shuddered into silence. The excavator driver took in the scene, engine idling.

There was no sign of life in the hoarders’ house.

From some accidental flagpole in the centre of the vast garbage pile a tea towel waved, emblazoned with the floral emblem of every Australian state. A forlorn and faded rebel flag.

The excavator driver studied possible routes of attack like a Ukrainian field commander facing Russian anti-tank ditches, dragons’ teeth, and minefields.

The front door of the hoarders’ house opened as wide as unseen clutter in the hallway allowed. They came out, both of them, the man and the woman, shouting at the excavator driver to leave them in peace.

‘This stuff is all valuable! It’s our property! Leave us alone! The council have got no right! If you take it that’s theft. I can have you in court for stealing!’

The truck drivers wisely stayed in their cabs, windows wound up. The excavator engine revved, the driver engaged the gears. More abuse from the hoarders. Stepping in front of the yellow machine. Screaming, then stumbling back as the bucket rose.

The tea towel rebel flag rippled in the breeze. Above it all, indifferent to the approaching danger.

The bucket dipped, its hungry lower jaw scraped along the ground. A sofa, a ceiling fan and a broken plastic laundry basket full of bulging plastic bags was scooped up and dropped in a skip. Desperate attempts were now made by the couple to snatch up items and retreat with them as the bucket returned, seizing cardboard boxes pulped by rain, and their spilled contents. The man and woman snatched up a broken birdcage, a fat length of silver ducting and a TV, and retreated further.

My neighbours had clustered together for a better view. This could take some time. I went downstairs and made more coffee and took it up to the window. The cat yowled and wound itself around my feet. I sat on the bed, and it curled up beside me.

One skip was full, the truck driver tying a blue tarp over the load. The yard didn’t look that different. The rebel flag still flew. The owners had retreated to the fortifications on the porch, three washing machines and a fridge. Continuing shouts of protest were reduced to silent mouthing and waved threats, all other sound drowned by the roar of the excavator. The couple disappeared inside.

The loaded truck was still on the road, the driver making repeated attempts to start the engine. Some of the neighbours wanted to get their cars out of our little cul de sac, but the truck boxed them in and stubbornly refused to start.

After ten minutes inside. the owners of the vast hoard of valuable items re-emerged, carrying more junk. At least, I thought it was junk. It was two cans of petrol. No-one had time or the wits or the means to avert the coming catastrophe.

They’d poured it all over the junk pile before anyone could move, raced to their front porch and threw a lighted cigarette into the middle of the heap.

Whoomph!

It all exploded at once. Petrol’s like that.

My windows shook, the dogs of the neighbourhood went off their brains, the cat yowled and sat bolt upright on the bed with its eyes huge. The stench of burning garbage rolled over us.

The neighbours who’d congregated for a better view ran. One attempted to douse the flames with his garden hose before dropping it, still spurting water, and running for the safety of his house.

The excavator driver ran for the hose and grabbed it, stood under it like a shower. His hair and clothes were singed black. The excavator was in flames, the diesel fuel sending up a fat, roiling column of inky black smoke.

The stranded truck was next. The other truck reversed out of the street just as the flames reached the hoarders’ house.

Were they inside? Had they got out the back and scrambled over the junk in the backyard and over the back fence to safety?

Sirens were howling in the distance, louder, closer. The hoarders’ house was in flames so intense the neighbouring houses’ side walls smouldered. The radiant heat drove me far back from the window. My windows exploded. Bang! Bang! Bang! One street-facing window after another. The cat fled down the stairs. I fled after it.

Why the hell had I pestered and pestered and pestered the council to come and clean up the hoarders’ junk?