Word count: 191| Completed:No | Style: Sibling-ey. Yes, that isn't a real word. Oh well.

Aoi followed the winding track as it gently sloped down the hill. Everyone else was far ahead, their eyes wandering the trees surrounding them, their feet skipping over stones that Aoi stubbed her toe on. There was no wind, the trees were still in the pleasant afternoon sun. She didn’t really feel like she was outside at all – the soft dirt beneath her sandals may as well be carpet, the scrub bean bags, the sky a ceiling painted with clouds. Why did they always walk this trail? She turned a bend she had walked every year for as long as she could remember. Looking up from the ground, she saw exactly the same thing as last time – retreating backs, lightly bouncing into the distance, partially obscured by scrub and eucalypts.

She didn’t like the bushwalks. The rest of the time she felt as if she fit in, her surrogate family thinking and feeling almost as she did. There were no eucalypt trees in Japan, just comfortably small gardens. Aoi couldn’t remember Japan of course, she was only a baby when the Weathersons had adopted her and brought her to the land down under. She had no real connection with her homeland. At times like this, she felt she had no connection with her new home either. The Great Australian Bush was nothing more than a large room filled with raucous birds and dingo droppings. But it wasn’t completely devoid of interest.

“Wait!” she called, rushing to catch up with her brothers.

< -Back to Stories

Original ideas etc. are MINE, but unoriginal things are used for fun and not for profit and belong to various people.