The Flood

The Flood is a story about being caught in a flash flood in a remote part of Australia. The story begins with a sense of knowing what might be there in the story, but also stages an encounter with what is not yet known. Inspired by Haraway and others, I wrote the story in order to participate in a ‘becoming-with’ the story, keeping open the possibility of what other stories this story might have to tell. I began with the proposition that the time of the flood was one of kairos—an event drawn from a more ongoing time (chronos) in which the elements, such as the rain, play a major part. But as time went on, another story came out, which is one of the event of the flood as a time of missing—not as a time of coming together but as one of coming apart. It turns out that what moved in the place was a story about love, humility and gratitude. Further still, a story had to come out about the shame and embarrassment of offending custodial responsibility, and speaking about it. The story reflects themes of ethics, temporality and ontology through various threads of love. The story reflects themes of ethics, temporality and ontology and forms part of a broader enquiry into humiliation and the feeling of being obliged. See for example Cefai (2020).