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The Forgiveness of Yellow
The Forgiveness of Yellow
The Forgiveness of Yellow
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The Forgiveness of Yellow

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This dystopian coming of age story is told through the switching first person perspectives of eight adolescents and a child living in Australia in the aftermath of the ‘yellow plague’ that wiped out two thirds of the population. “The Forgiveness of Yellow” follows their individual journeys toward closure and a new life gathered from the ruins. weaved throughout the novel is the subtle motif of yellow in association with what has been taken from them by the plague as well as providing some hope for their futures.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherCiara Emily
Release dateAug 23, 2016
ISBN9781370190126
The Forgiveness of Yellow
Author

Ciara Emily

From before I was ten years old writing has been my dream, I'm 17 now and that calling is just as strong as it was then. I'm working on improving Halcyon between my studies so if you'd like something to read it would mean a lot to me to get some feed back on it

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    Book preview

    The Forgiveness of Yellow - Ciara Emily

    The Forgiveness of Yellow

    The Forgiveness

    Of Yellow

    By Ciara Emily

    Smashwords Edition

    Copyright @ 2016 Ciara Emily

    Thank you for supporting my writing

    Part One

    Eleni

    The sea spray stings my frail figure. The food has been short lately. You’d think with so many dead there’d be more food to go around but you’d be wrong. There may be less mouths to feed but in the cruel irony that I’ve come to expect there are also less hands to feed them. Last night, another pair of hands went limp, another mouth closed hungry, and another pair of tired eyes cried and closed for the last time. I’d been living on as little as I could to keep Darcy’s eyes open, but it wasn’t enough.

    ‘I wasn’t enough!’ I scream through chattering teeth, at the glaring green of the storm and its reflection in the waves pounding at the cliff. My toes curling over its edge, my throat torched from the screaming. I am shaking, freezing, clad in the soaked oil black of my shirt and tattered dark jeans. Mourning colours. For Darcy. And for me. Because everyone who’ll ever care for my life is gone. They are burried in the earth or amongst mixed ashes in blackened bush land.

    I haven’t decided whether I’m afraid, I’m just hoping it will be quick. I’m hoping that god is real and that he’ll forgive me.

    I suck in a deep breath then think better of it, it’ll drag longer that way. Exhaling the thick air burried in my lungs I rock forward on my toes. ‘I love you Darcy.’ I whisper as I fall. A few stretched seconds hold me tangled in the storm my insides feeling as if they’re falling before me. Then my mind catches up and it’s me. It’s me the waves are pounding, throwing me through the air. I am heaving them in. The green bursting my ears. I squeese my eyes shut, and seal my mouth. With no sight or hearing or smell or taste I find myself pretending I don’t exist. For a few moments even believing it. The thought is sweet. I smile and then realise my mistake as the water breaks through my lips. That’s when the burning starts.

    Seagull

    I am sitting with my back against the railing waiting for the mutton birds. Across from me Rabbit is plucking the yellow flowers from their patches in the sand. I’d promised to show him how to make chains of them to keep him busy whilst his brother hunted with Cat and Sena.

    ‘Tell me a story Sea?’ he pleads.

    ‘One day in the old times, there was a little boy who was nine years old.’

    I watch him grin before continuing, making the story sound much more dramatic then is probably warranted. ‘He was walking along a beach, much like this one, all alone. Every so often he would bend down as if picking something up.’

    These stories were all I kept from my years as Freya. I’d told him this one before but he didn’t seem to mind.

    ‘Afterwards he would throw it out in the ocean. Now a crowd of people had gathered wondering what he was doing and an old man decided to go see for himself. When the man reached the boy he realised he was picking up starfish that had washed up on the shore and throwing them out to sea again. The old man thought this was quite silly and he told the boy so. He said…’

    I pause putting on a bad old man accent.

    Young lad why would you waste time throwing in these star fish, look how many there are, they are along the whole beach, you can’t even begin to make a difference.

    Rabbit laughs.

    ‘And then the boy nods, politely picks up another starfish, throws it into the ocean and says…’

    I stop and let rabbit do the boys voice.

    But to this little starfish it’ll make all the difference in the world.

    We are silent for a bit. A nice comfortable quiet whilst I help rabbit with his flower chain. His eyes light up as he points to something in the distance ‘Quick Sea look! The first mutton birds!’

    I follow his finger and he’s right, there are several black shapes washed up on the shoreline in the distance. But the shape furthest away doesn’t look quite right. Rabbit bounds down the hill and I scramble after him grabbing the mutton bird kit.

    Rabbit gets there before me and starts tending to the first bird, I know he is hungry but I am proud of him for saving the starfish. Sure we could eat them and most people would but it doesn’t feel fair that after all they’ve been through that someone not help them. The mutton birds wash ashore this time every year and it used to be the rookie patrols that would spot for them and call wires. An old life guard once told me that they are migrating birds and that their migration is so long that many of them aren’t strong enough and drop from the sky in exhaustion. That’s how they get here; they wash up on the shore dead or dying from exhaustion and hunger.

    I take a small flask of water from the pack and move to the next clump where three birds lay limply. They’re all still hanging on so I help each take a droplet of water. I sit with them for a few minutes, watch as one of them struggles to get up and walks to the water. It wades across the water and out of sight. The second bird seems to have gained back its strength and it stands up, but hesitates watching its friend. The third’s eyes are dull and sad, it’s not going to make it. It’s still hanging on though, stuck in limbo. The second bird is determined to stay with his friend so I murmur a small prayer for them and keep moving. I’ll come back and get its’ body later, we can’t afford to waste the food that’s handed to us. But for now I’ll let its friend grieve.

    As I get closer to the last few I double take. Further down washed up on the shore is a frail looking girl in drenched black clothing. She looks as broken, hungry and exhausted as the black birds around her. I check the pulse on her neck. It is slow and irregular but there.

    ‘Rabbit!’ I call but he is already behind me, his eyes are wider with surprise but he doesn’t look scared. Sadly he’s grown used to this death and dying and bodies strewn at angles they shouldn’t be. ‘Take the legs’, I instruct him ‘careful of her ankle though.’

    She’s thin and underfed but rabbit is only nine and of average strength for his age so it takes a long time to reach the cement ramp of the old Macmasters surf club and even longer to get the girl up the steps and through the double glass doors of what was once the function room but now serves as our base. We lay her on her side on an upturned inflated raft that I use as a bed, then rabbit runs downstairs for the first aid. When he comes back I send him to get her some clothes while I use the scissors in the kit he brought me to cut away her black feathers.

    I do my best to wash her wounds then

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