I was looking through some old files and found a forgotten story from 2007. I’ve been writing science fiction for a while, sometimes stories are odder (or should that be Ocker? 😉 ) than others. [Ocker means extremely Australian.]

Bonza’s Billabong

Bonza Duke lived in Red Gum Lane in the messiest shack behind the leaning-ist fence with the town’s sole remaining outside loo. Bonza’s Dunny they called it, and the drunks as they staggered home from Chunda Pub paused a moment to spend a penny in tribute to its fading glory.

Bonza Duke was admiring his dunny Tuesday night when its corrugated roof gave a warning shake.

Shiver, tremble and rumbling rev.

Spiders fell from generational webs and Claude the carpet python slithered for safety. Only Bonza remained spellbound in the dunny as it fell apart around him and disclosed the alien craft which had buried itself nose first four feet away.

“Drunk drivers, rotten bastards,” shouted Bonza, shaking his fist. “Who’s gonna fix my dunny?”

A swaying figure struggled from the wreckage. “Dreadfully sorry,” it said, green about the gills and tentacles quivering. “I was aiming for the nearest water, but the universe positioning system seems to have glitched.”

“No glitch, mate,” said Bonza, good humour recovered in the face of shared catastrophe. “Drought.”

Drought.

The dusty wind swept through the yard, rattling empty cans and the dried skeletons of plants.

“Oh dear,” said the stranger. “I am in rather desperate need of water.”

“Aren’t we all,” said Bonza, although in truth beer served him well and that hadn’t run out — yet. “Come on in and have a beer. We’ll sort something out.”

Beer isn’t the most reliable of aids to thought, but neither Bonza nor his new mate, Etam, were daunted. Bonza grew redder of face and thicker of speech, and Etam’s tentacles glowed like sunrise and jerked spasmodically, but their thoughts moved like lightning. Bonza forgot to lament his lost dunny. Etam overlooked the damage to his transport and his stranding on a strange planet in a weird galaxy.

“The way I see it,” said Bonza. “The problem is the weather. Forget greenhouse gas. Pardon me,” he belched and gulped another beer. “The problem is that the city folk are snaffling our rain.”

“Bah,” said Etam in alcoholically amiable support. He accepted another beer.

“The way I see it,” said Bonza. “Our only chance is if we steal back our rain.”

Gulp. Belch. Giggle. “How?” Etam blinked at the oracle.

“Hyperdrive,” said Bonza with the authority of a man who has watched one and a half episodes of Star Trek, or something like that. “You hop in that spaceship of yours and fly fast enough to round up our clouds.”

“Can’t,” Etam broke into tears. “Broken.”

“No problem,” Bonza waved his beer can expansively. “I can fix anything.”

And the strange thing Etam found in the morning, when they both surfaced with headaches and bloodshot eyes, was that Bonza really could fix anything — given enough wire and cursing.

“Ready?” asked Bonza that evening.

Etam signalled “all systems go” from the cockpit.

The ground erupted in a screaming volcano of dust. Bonza coughed and blinked and rubbed his eyes, and waited for his neighbours to wander up.

The pub emptied. People emerged clutching their beers and they all stood, looking up.

Clouds gathered, faster and denser, harassed by a sheepdog of a space craft.

“That’s my mate up there,” said Bonza, proudly. “Etam’s bringing our rain.”

The first drop of rain hit him in the mouth.

Hurriedly, the country folk drank their beer before it could be diluted. Then they danced around the remains of Bonza’s Dunny celebrating the rain.

Ping. Drumming. Torrent. The rain hit the corrugated iron and cement-hard dirt as if making up for lost time.

Gradually, the rain ceased to be a novelty, the pub closed and everyone went home. Only Bonza waited.

Etam landed carefully in the sea of mud. “It worked.”

“Have a beer,” said Bonza. They retreated to the relative dryness of the veranda.

By morning, the remains of Bonza’s Dunny, and half the town, had washed away.

“I think we overdid it,” said Bonza as sheep floated past and Claude the carpet python hissed at him from the waterlogged ceiling of the sagging house. “What was it you wanted the water for?”

Etam waggled his tentacles deprecatingly. “I don’t want to be rude,” he began cautiously. “But as a species humans are stupid. You really should have died out several times; yet you never have, which makes me think that there must be something special in your water. I intend to take some home and market it as from the Fountain of Life. Of course, I’ll only take a small amount. Rarity drives the price higher. And I’d never tell anyone the location of Earth.”

“I’m not worried about that,” said Bonza. It seemed to him that there was nothing in Etam’s speech to argue with. Bloody city folk, no wonder they wanted to keep the water all to themselves. Only — a roo surfed past — it did seem possible to have too much of a good thing. “What are we going to do with all the water left over?”

They modified the front of Etam’s space craft to dig out a ginormous hole where Bonza’s Dunny had stood. The deep earth excavation caused only minor tremors in Stockholm. Bonza and Etam sat on the edge of the veranda and watched with satisfaction as the water drained into the hole.

“Time I was going,” said Etam, disposing of his final beer. “It’s been an education, meeting you, Bonza.”

“Same here,” said Bonza, and they wrung hands ferociously.

The spacecraft splashed and whirled into the night sky. Bonza lifted a beer can in salute. He drained it, then stared thoughtfully at the hole now placidly filled with water. Bonza rescued a sheet of corrugated iron from the flood debris and painted a sign:

“Bonza’s Billabong,” and then, in smaller letters. “Aliens welcome.”