Brinda stared down at her muddy reflection, watching as each tiny ripple tore through her once flawless face. She pulled back the stray strands of long brown hair that hung loose around her shoulders, framing her face and setting alight her large Hazel eyes. She tentatively placed a finger to her cheek, rubbing softly at an angry red graze
Pain throbbed through her and she pulled her hands away in fright, holding them in front of her to examine the bright red substance that had been smeared across each frail finger.
She straightened up and wiped them clean with the hem of her heavy black school skirt before smoothing it down, smiling sadly at her image in the dirty puddle and sniffing quietly. The soft sound seemed to vibrate through the still and silent overgrown bush, pounding in her head as she continued, almost lazily down the narrow dirt track.
Her cheek burned intensely and both knees felt as if they may dissolve if she walked any further. Brinda slipped off the track, an old bushman’s trail, she suspected and headed down a dry stream.
Grass and flax scratched at her bare arms as she desperately searched for a place to rest. The once dazzling and appealing green of the bush had churned to an ugly and evil, darker than the hearts of the forever condemned, deep in the pits of hell.
Mud coated her heavy black shoes and caked on her ankles, weighing her down as she crashed through the dense undergrowth. Brinda cursed her school for the every-faithful uniform, which she knew was unfair, nobody had the slightest idea that she would be battling for her life, crashing through the scrub when she should be sitting an algebra exam!
She finally came to rest under a large Kauri tree, falling to the ground like a mistreated rag doll and pushing her body close to its base, its sturdy trunk a security blanket, supporting her and shielding her from the rest of the world.
Brinda lifted her head heavenward, her hair catching on the rough tree bark and her sink ached for the warm kiss of sunlight. A large canopy for trees hid the sun and its twisting rays, filling Brinda with the icy chill of darkness.
She pulled her arms inside her light blue blouse, once again cursing the school, sleeveless summer shirts, Why? She found little warmth under the thin cotton and drew her knees toward her chest, pulling her shirt over them and folding herself into a warm embrace.
Her lips parted slowly as she whispered the words from a familiar song, shattering the bone chilling silence. She closed her eyes in concentration as the words became harder to retrieve from her memory.
“And the birds of prey, they fly,
An expectant Mother lies down to cry,
The first night of war, yet to see its dawn,
Yet a woman left behind has reason to mourn.”
Brinda regretted ignoring all the warning, all the rumours spread through the school yard. The war would never catch up with a minuscule allotment of land, deep in the Pacific Ocean yet here it was. The Buen war had sprung upon New Zealand, an eager dog set upon an unclaimed bone.
She shut her eyes once more and conjured an image of her family. Her younger sister Liana’s curly brown hair and sea green eyes flashed before her, that cheeky gap-tooth grin as always planted on her facer and her puggish up –turned nose was turned up in the air, a constant reminder of how head –strong and proud Liana could be.
Brinda and Liana had been the best of friends since, when Brinda was three her Mother held Liana’s blotchy pink face against her own and whispered.
“She’s your baby sister, keep her from harm and love her unconditionally, Liana is a blessing”
Brinda sniffed and blinked back the tears, ‘keep her from harm’ how could she do so if she had no clue where she was? She threw her head backwards, hitting the tree with an all-mighty crack and making her cry out in pain.
