“…the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river…”

The northern half of my country seems to be under water. For the first few days of the crisis, I thought it was fairly minor- maybe the basement of the house my mother and step-father own was under water, or a friend couldn’t get to the airport to get home from his holiday. Annoying and expensive, but nothing that concerned me.

Then I found out that towns I knew as a kid were under water. That the area in which my friend was had less fresh food daily.

Then yesterday, the city in which I spent six and a half years was flooding- worse than it had for a very, very long time. Friends of mine were mostly alright, although a woman I love dearly has been evacuated and other friends are isolated in their homes or have their suburbs cut off from the rest of Brisbane. That sort of thing is damn painful to deal with, even if everyone seems to be fine.

But it’s all okay! Because Justin Bieber is on the case- he mentioned Queensland in passing to the Almighty. ‘Sall gonna be good, now!

Dozens are dead, more are missing, and there are millions of dollars in damages and shattered lives- but some pre-teen kid has told his invisible friend about it. Awesome.

If anyone would like to do something helpful, the Queensland government has a page full o’ links right here.