here goes:
GENEROSITY
Max saw a mountainous sea of green. Each blade of grass seemed to contribute to the thousands of different shades. The vastness made it cover his whole vision, nothing to be seen but green. He watched as a black cloud loomed closer like the shoulder of a passing planet. The bright green was becoming duller by the second. A cold breeze and sudden temperature drop made the hairs on Max’s arms stand up. The surrounding roly poly hills became obscured by the fog. The sky showed nothing but an impossibly large grey blanket.
Max became drenched within a matter of minutes. His hair dripped down his face, sliding like tears. He walked through the squelchy green carpet looking for a shelter that just wasn’t there. BANG. Lightning struck close by. It blared into two of Max’s senses- sight and hearing making him jump a meter forward. The rain that now pelted contributed to two other senses- touch and smell. The rain became so hard that it hurt. Each drop triggered more shivers through Max’s body. Although the lightning continued to strike frighteningly close and the rain seemed never ending Max managed to calm down and remember what he was doing. He closed his eyes, holding onto his pack tightly.
He deeply breathed out, relieved. Out of all the places he’d been to, the lightning and hammering rain-filled one was not the one he wanted to get stuck at. The first thing that Max noticed to be different was the people. It wasn’t an overcrowded street but there were a handful of people around going around living there day-to-day lives. It looked like pack-up time for the shops. Max checked his watch immediately remembering that it would be wrong. It read One pm. Max shivered and thought he must look weird standing in the middle of the street drenched with rain and shivering when it obviously hadn’t rained at the place he stood. Still, he continued to stand there. He couldn’t remember a time where he had less of an idea of what to do next. The street wasn’t familiar but it looked similar to the town in which he had stayed at on his last visit to a strange, non-Delm town. Max decided to take a walk, passing all the shop windows. Max looked up at the sign above what was presumably a pub.
Bowtown tavern. The next sign read Bowtown grocery center. It didn’t take a genius to know what the town was called. He wished he’d paid more attention on his last visit. He remembered the town being called something similar to Anchorn, or maybe it was Nankle. Max had to stop himself smiling when he thought ‘At least I know it has an A in it.’ Then he remembered the hopelessness of the situation. As the dreary day got darker before his eyes, Max’s heart beat faster as he realised he had nowhere to go. He went down a dark alleyway for some privacy, planning to try and turn up in some other place. A thought crossed his mind right before he closed his eyes. Max could somehow feel the closeness, what if he never got any closer to his destination. What if the next time he disappeared to some other place it would be even further then he was now? What if he could never come back to here? The doubt was hard to swallow down, in the end he felt he had to stay. A shiver ran down the length of Max’s body. The night didn’t feel cold; the wet clothes made him shiver. The full darkness of night had now settled in. The worry Max felt had so far pushed out any desires to eat or sleep. The worry turned into fear as he walked down the footpath that never ended. The street lights were becoming fewer and Max had to forced himself not to look into the dark shop windows. Eventually the exhaustion took its toll. He found an old bench surrounding by towering trees. The scene opposed friendly but the bench seemed comfier than the dirt floor. Max lay down on the bench, cringing as the wood pushed his wet clothes into his skin. Max felt through his bag for some clothes. Not knowing what he’d grabbed he threw it on top of himself and held it tight. He doubted it would make much difference; the coldness he now felt seemed irreversible. However the tiredness was inevitable. He hoped he’d wake up early before anyone else found him. The last thing he saw was a silvery half moon through the gaps in the trees.
Max got his wish. Another shiver rippled through him and he realised what had woken him. His teeth continued to chatter. The sun had barely risen and Max felt more tired than when he had gone to sleep. Max grabbed his clothes that had served as a blanket. They were on the ground, Max brushed the dirt off them, and put them back in his bag, they felt a little damp. Max touched the jacket he wore which felt much damper. Max searched through his bag for a clean lot of clothes. He managed to find a clean blue T shirt and a pair of trakkies. He had to wear the jacket that he’d used as a blanket. It didn’t feel too damp; it had probably spent most of the night on the floor. Max shoved the wet clothes into his bag and hoped they would miraculously dry scrunched up in little balls. Max realised how much his legs ached when he started walking again. He hadn’t realised how much he had walked last night. He felt it had all been for nothing. He hadn’t known where to go or anything. This time he walked with a purpose. Max checked the signs of each shop, occasionally peeking through the windows. Max walked until the morning sun heated his back. The footpath that had been going straight for nearly a kilometre suddenly had a corner. It continued straight after crossing a road, however on the other side of the road there weren’t any more shops, only paddocks with a house out the front. Max stopped walking.
“Are you after anything?” asked a man who sweeped the outside of his shop.
“Oh, no, no thank you.”
“Hey shouldn’t you be in school?”
Max looked at the man, he looked middle-aged with greying hair and a bony face and body. “Yeah but-“
“Don’t worry I’m not gonna dob you in.”
“Oh thanks.”
“So what ya doing just stopping in the footpath, ya got me excited, I thought I had a customer,” the man sounded angry but when Max looked he saw the man smiling.
“Oh I’m actually lost” Max admitted.
“Come right in,” said the man holding the door open after him.
When Max entered the shop he saw a lot of wood. There were wooden wheelbarrows, tables, chairs, and pretty much anything wooden. Max followed the man through a narrow path though the overpopulated shop items. There were no other people in the shop. Max couldn’t help trusting the man. He led Max up to a high wooden counter and pulled out a map.
“Now where are you headed?” asked the man.
“Um..” Max said craning his neck to see the map better. “There” Max pointed. “Nevcorn” After all of that it didn’t even have an ‘A’ in it.
“Oh. Don’t know why you’d wanna go there but anyway.”
“Why not?” asked Max, confused.
“Oh, sorry you don’t live there do you?”
“No” not yet anyway, thought Max.
“Well I dunno, its just not as good as here. It’s a dull sort of place, the people round there aren’t too happy. They don’t have anywhere near as many shops as Bowtown.” Said the man.
“Oh well maybe I’m wrong,” he added after seeing the disappointed look on Max’s face. “I think I’m being prejudiced, you see. I went to the school- hated every second of it.”
“Oh, okay,” said Max hoping he’d find some way out of going back to the school. It seemed very unlikely. “What’s so bad about the school.”
“They’re very strict. It’s military-like. They’re always talking about how horrible these “Delm” people are and how we should all hate them and be ready when they come knocking on our front doors. To be honest I don’t even believe that these Delms are real. So you can imagine how much attention I paid to classes. Even if they were real I don’t know why we’d be trying to pick a fight with them. I like my life the way it is thanks.” He laughed. “Bunch of garbage, they should be teaching you’s important stuff like.. I don’t know wood shaping” he laughed again. Then he became more serious “I hear it’s getting bigger in all the schools. The principal of the school has something to do with our government system, it’s not right.”
Max nodded three times then forced some words out. “Yeah, its stupid.”
“Anyway back to the task.” The man said lightly. “Nevcorn is right down there” he said pointing out the back of the shop. If you turn round that corner and keep going you should get there. It’s a fair walk though. You sure you’re up to it.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine” said Max -what other choice did he have.
“Don’t suppose you want to buy anything?” asked the man hopefully.
“Sorry, I don’t have any money”, Max admitted.
“That’s alright,. You got food and water?”
“Nope” said Max and his stomach grumbled at the thought of food.
The man sighed and shook his head. “Stay here”, he said and walked to the back of the store through a door.
He came back with a drink bottle, a bread roll, some Anzac biscuits in a paper bag and some toffees.
Max wanted to say no to the offering but his stomach grumbled in protest.
“Thank you so much.”
“Ah, it’s not much. Take the map as well.”
They walked to the front of the shop.
Max thanked him again.
“My pleasure, it’s been good to have someone to talk to, I don’t get a lot of people come into my shop. Guess I should have paid more attention in school and I might have got a better job. Anyway, Bye.”
“Cya”
Max walked away realising he didn’t even know the man’s name. He still felt stunned at the man’s generosity. He turned the corner and continued walking down a path that turned into a dirt track.
Halfway through the day Max found he couldn’t keep walking for much longer. His could feel blisters on his feet. His back, knees, ankles, and feet all ached and each step became a struggle. He had eaten 2 Anzacs from the paper bag but he now felt he needed more food, more energy to keep walking. Still he walked on. He looked for an appropriate place to rest. He walked for another hour or so until the earth became grassier. He found a nice patch of grass under the shade of a tree. A scraped his back on the tree as he fell to the ground. He sat for several minutes until he took his shoes on and started on his bread roll. Half an hour passed before Max could force himself to get up again. He hoped it wouldn’t take much longer.
Nightfall fell and Max hadn’t seen any signs saying ‘Nevcorn’ yet. He walked and walked, trying to find a good place to sleep. No place came and he settled for a small spot out of the way of the path near a brick wall. He put some clothes underneath him to stop the rocks digging into him. The clothes, to his disappointment were still wet. He took out the only non-wet T-shirt and used it as a pillow. It took him a while to try and get his thoughts to shut up before he could sleep.
Max woke up to the sound of children screaming. He sat up, startled. Two kids were playing tiggy 50 metres from where Max sat. Max scrunched up the clothes under and on top of him and shoved them into his backpack. He got up and started walking; it seemed almost mechanical as he staggered along. This time he didn’t make it to lunch time. He crumpled down onto a concrete patch, the grass seemed to have disappeared completely and the dirt became concrete. It got greyer and duller as he walked on. Which meant Nevcom got closer. As much as he wanted to get there, he couldn’t help having shudders of nerves. ‘What if they hated him? What if he had deeply betrayed them by leaving? What if they wanted to..’- he couldn’t even think of what they might like to do to him. Even the thought of having the door slammed in his face became unsettling; he would need food and water before too long. His stomach dropped when he saw the sign. Nevcorn even the sign looked evil. At the same time he became excited. Max wondered if all the walking had befuddled his brain. He felt almost relieved as he walked through the town thinking of being able to sleep in a bed that night. Being positive made his heart rate slow down and the dread disappear so he continued to think that the situation would work out brilliantly. He became lost. The town differed greatly to Bowtown where the streets were long and structured. He wandered and wandered for most of the night refusing to stop. Early morning had arrived and Max felt a tiny twinge of proud- ness for staying up the whole night, a twinge that got greatly overshadowed by his exhaustion. By this time he could hardly tell if he walked straight let alone where he was. He squinted through the sun that lashed at his eyes. He stumbled into yet another courtyard. Familiarisation hit him and he knew he must have been walking in circles. He continued walking, frustration making him walk a little faster. He stopped still and forced his eyes to open a little wider. The excitement faded into relief as his escalating heartbeat got strangled by exhaustion. There in the middle of the sunny courtyard sat what looked like a green glowing rubbish bin. Max realised identical porthole’s probably existed in different places but as he took in the scene he realised that it looked exactly like the place he had escaped from last term. Max walked straight and turned a corner. For the first time in what felt like a billion steps he knew where his feet were taking him. Max went to knock on the door but realised it was still too early. He would have kept walking were his legs not buckling underneath him as he stood. He went to sit leaning against the brick wall of the house next door. He didn’t want to appear too exhausted when he went inside the house. More importantly he wanted to be able to run if he needed to. His body felt relief but he had to struggle against his eyes to stop them from closing. He dozed. When he woke he decided to get up before he fell asleep again. It took several minutes until he could get himself to knock on the door. Despite being completely fatigued his heart still accelerated, he bit his lip and felt his nails dig into his hand when he scrunched them into balls. Meanwhile his stomach turned round and round like a clothes dryer. The first knock was inaudible so he knocked again louder. He waited and knocked again. Suddenly the door swung open and Max jumped. First she stared at Max with wide eyes. The moment seemed to go on longer than Max wished for. Suddenly she had him in her arms. Max saw a blur of the room as she swung him around and plopped him on the couch. She assessed every inch of him with her eyes, looking up down and up again. She hurried back to the kitchen and came back in a shorter time than seemed possible with a ham sandwich on a plate. Max almost expected her to curtsey; she seemed to be trying so hard to please him and still her eyes stayed wide as circles. She stared at Max long enough for him to want to look away.
