(diaryland) January 31, 2005 - 3:38 p.m.

Finally I can update again.

I must tell you about my terrifying experience on January 26th. That particular day was named Australia Day, or Invasion day, when many fireworks are released into the sky to celebrate white people landing on the shore of a fabulous country and ruining everything, once again.

Anyway, May and her family and I went to some flat spot in the middle of suburbia to look at fireworks. I remember I got scared last year, but I coped. I get really frightened of lightning and thunder, so fireworks are sort of a small-scale version of that fear, yet more snazzy-looking.

We landed in some windy street and trekked to the area in which the fireworks would happen. Suddenly, the police were herding everyone into a corner where this timber toilet was, as if we were rioters or something. Then, as soon as that happened, the fireworks began.

The first thing I saw was a fireball land right near somebody's feet. That was the point at which I ran behind a bush, shouting as if I was being fired upon. Come to think of it, I almost was.

Everybody was screaming and all the children were crying. The corner where the police made us go was where the wind was blowing, so all the dangerous pointy, flamey sparks were hurtling towards us. The timber toilet could have caught on fire and we could have all died in a giant, flaming bonfire of burning excrement. The police weren't thoughtful. May's mother went behind the bush with me, and I crouched there for the next fifteen minutes as the fireworks kept blasting away, wishing the whole thing was over. I was trapped.

Then, when it was all done, we all went home. Nobody actually died.