Hunkered down at the base of the fence, Kara waited: silent, listening. Then she stood and peered into the cage. The plants were in various stages of growth. Some a foot tall, others just fresh new seedlings. All were in black pots and spaced as efficiently as possible within the cage. The bright-green luminescence of young eucalypt leaves distinguished them from the surrounding monotony of introduced pines. She tried to recall how many she had raised and planted, but had lost count. All grown from seeds she had collected, from the few remaining natives — their will to survive unshaken by the destruction of their environment, their roots so well established as to sustain the mechanical and chemical onslaught of the forestry operations. These were the best stock for her to propagate.

Natural survivors, like her own family, born into a hostile world and expected to thrive. She took in the surrounding devastation and thought again about her own life.

Born into this.

Kara walked back into the rows to where she had finished her previous work here, and tore a few pines from the ground. With each of these trips, she could feel they were getting more established and harder to remove. She replaced them with some of the larger eucalypts from her cage, caressing their young, succulent roots with her bare hands as she removed them gently from their pots. She patted the soil in around them and stared at them for a while with proud affection. It was like looking into a mirror.

Eventually the pines here would be too large to replace, and she would have to move her nursery to another location and start over. Her actions were never going to make a real difference, or solve her money problems. She knew that. But she was out of the office and away from her desk. She was walking, still, with her uncle, fulfilling some cultural obligations in her own small, secret way. Rich people might have all the trimmings, but they couldn’t buy this type of satisfaction.

Kara gathered the two large buckets that were leaning against the cage. They, too, were painted black. Taking one in each hand, she climbed out over the cage and made her way to the creek for water, the lowering sun finally warming her back.

INVASION DAY

‘Stand out!’ yelled stiff-legged Jack.

Through the amplifying harshness of the megaphone, he sounded like a dictator.

He turned to me. ‘Stand out, brother,’ he said, in the melodious yet graveled tones of his natural voice.

In his day, stiff-legged Jack was a national leader and a balls-to-the-wall activist. He was our hero, really. Even in retirement, he is on the news every couple of weeks — agitating, pushing our interests. People around noticed he had singled me out, and a hand patted my shoulder. I felt important.