Summer Swallows

It's been a long day, a busy day, moving sheep and checking troughs, inspecting fences. We drenched two mobs of big, headstrong wethers. Hard work on a hot day. At the end the dusk comes very slowly, the heat sitting in the hollow, the sky turning orange like the underbelly of the swallows.
Swallows nest on the metal girders of the machinery shed. Swarms of them swoop in and out through the open front side of the shed catching insects abundent in the gloaming; their darts are a pure, sharply precise cutting of the air. My brother winds down after the long day shooting them with the air rifle. He is quite an accurate shot. The roof and tops of the walls of the shed are speckled with dozens of feathery, bloody slpodges. He knocks down their nests, too, until dad gets annoyed with the mess of the nests falling on the vehicles parked underneath.

Meniscus

- Stop crying.

- I can’t. I’m sorry. Don’t be angry with me.

- Well, go some where else.

- Please talk to me.

- Stop whining.

- Can't you just to talk to me?

- There’s nothing to fuckin talk about.

He leaves the room. She sits on the floor on her haunches making intermittent squeeks through her wide open mouth. Her face is red, like she’s not getting enough oxygen.

He returns. He has a glass and a cardboard cask. He sits in the single arm chair in front of the television and pours himself a wine and lights a cigarette. She crawls over to him and looks up.

- Don’t look at me like a dog.

She wails loudly, snot streaming out of her nose.

- I’m trying to watch the soccer.

She stands up and walks into the corner of the room, pushes herself as far into it as she can, and continues sobbing for some time.

She straightens herself, wipes her face with the bottom of the t-shirt she’s wearing and squeezes her nose into it. She walks behind his chair, takes the tobacco and box of matches outside.

The grass is covered in dew. She walks to the verge and leans against the angophora. She pinches tobacco onto creased paper and with slightly trembling fingers rolls a thin, papery fag. She wets its end and rotates it between her lips before she lights it.

She walks into the empty road, to the end of the street, round past the shopping centre, strips of quiet houses, into the reserve. In the bright moonlight she picks her way along the narrow tracks and across Kangas’ rock. A dog barks in the still distance, part of the perpetual conversation.

She crouches, feet flat on the cold rock, gazing out over the town, for a long time.