Hello, everyone! It has been a long time hasn't it? I haven't given up on these stories I'll have you know. But I write when I like, and it's just now at the end of my last college year that I'm gaining inspiration again.
After reading through the last chapters of this story I realised just how many spelling and grammatical errors are in those previous chapters . . . I apologise. I'll edit them sometime soon.
I feel like I need to classify that this story is set in the early 20th century. I tried portraying that indirectly but I don't think it's getting through affectively.
Enjoy! I'll probably be updating again soon.
The forrestiana (Eucalyptus forrestiana), otherwise known as the 'fuchsia gum', is a short and ornamental eucalypt. In Western Australia people grow them in gardens for the splash of maranello-red flowers.
Like desetorum as previously mentioned, it's short. Short enough for it to be damned in some circles as a shrub.
Many times during the evening Kyle was tempted to mention the girl of freckled, toffee pearl, and sometimes even parted his lips to do so, but he always decided against it and stopped himself short.
"You were late finishing your chores today," Arthur directed at Kyle as he sat down with the other two at the table. His tone wasn't frustrated, but matter-of-fact.
"Yeah."
"And why was that?"
Kyle didn't reply.
"Are you deaf, boy? Answer me."
"I fell asleep," Kyle confessed.
"You-?" Arthur began, but stopped himself with a sharp exhale through his nose.
"Hold out your hand."
"No."
"Hold out your hand, boy!" Now Arthur's voice was raised.
"Please, not at the dinner table, please . . ." Kylie whispered, but Arthur ignored her.
Kyle reluctantly obeyed and flinched when he received a firm crack! across his knuckles.
Fuck.
What kind of man brings his discipline cane to the dinner table, anyway?
The sensation burnt fiercely hot before tingling into numbness. A welt raised on the initially red mark.
"Next time, I will beat the laziness out of you completely."
Kyle said nothing and brooded for the rest of dinner. Arthur wouldn't be able to do this for much longer – he was growing into a man. He couldn't be treated like a child anymore. He deserved some more dignity, right?
. . . Right?
But the matter of it was that he wasn't an adult. Not just yet.
Every day he would continue to put his arms around the scribbly gum. Someday soon, he would be strong and mature enough to take care of himself, his grandmother, and the farm alone. But for the time being, Kyle felt a strange smugness to have a secret now, as if it were a private, spiteful protest for his independence.
Kyle and his grandmother's knees knocked due to their close proximity sitting at the dining table – no, it was used as a dining table, but it was too small to be a true one. Inconspicuously, Kyle reached under the table and placed his undisciplined hand on her lower thigh. She looked to him, and they shared an implicit moment.
Kyle thought that briefly he saw her black eyes glimmer, but he wasn't sure.
The forrestiana did not usually grow in Kyle's home area in New South Wales, but it did stand out rather independently in his botanical book of native flora. This is because it reminded him of his grandmother: beautiful, but undermined. Used. It was small, oh so small, like Kylie's repeatedly crushed spirit.
And like Kylie with humanity, the forrestiana was often disregarded by many as a 'true' tree.
That evening while Kyle cleaned the dishes he listened as Kylie and Arthur argued in another room. Kylie was brave to do so. Did you know that Aboriginals, let alone women, had no rights in this time? They were literally considered under the same category as animals. Kyle swallowed as he heard the feud end with the usual loud smack.
Silence.
When Kyle showered later that night he remained under the water until it ran cold and bit into him like a thousand frozen mouths.
