DownUnder

"Do you come from the land DownUnder?" The lady asked.

As politely as I could, I nodded while eating.

Immediately, her stature changed, "You have to leave. Your kind are not welcome here."

I grabbed my bag, used to this type of reaction from UpAbove-ers, "Thank you for the meal."

"You should just eat your own food. It's not like you people have any shortage of food in DownUnder." The old lady said shortly, going to the door and prying it open.

I ducked my head as I was forced into the dark gray streets.

The sun had set a time ago and the chill permeating the air around UpAbove had long since settled onto the houses and roads. I followed the main road, keeping to the shadows as my dark skin would be easily noticed in the light of the few lamps scattered here and there.

UpAbove was drastically different from DownUnder. Where DownUnder was warm and sunny at all times of the day, UpAbove seemed to have its dampness built into it.

This whole situation was ironic, for the sunny DownUnder was, as the name suggests, down under the ground. The cool UpAbove was subjected to the harsh elements of fog and rain all year round but it was above the ground.

As a result of the long and dangerous journey to and from DownUnder, many distinct characteristics had appeared in the DownUnder-ese.

The dark, reddish skin was one of them and the black hair was another. Similarly, the UpAbove-eds had pallid skin and a washed out colour hair that had once been passed off as light yellow.

As DownUnder flourished in its warm weather, UpAbove-eds had come to resent the 'Land-of-Plenty' for everything that they did not have.

As petty as the resentment may seem, it was enough over the centuries to divide the two cultures indefinitely.

As a fully grown man, I had shamed my family by talking about the UpAbove-ers in the presence of my children.

And, true to DownUnder culture, I was sent off to the land of the UpAbove-ers that I had defended from a harsh word.

I winced as a sharp light flashed into my eyes before it moved off.

I was no better off than when I had started on my own in DownUnder. All that I had today, my wife and children, had come from my strength and determination.

Now I was degraded to a mere man like I had been before I had found all that I had once possessed.

A clank in front of me alerted me to a presence that I would have usually missed.

The man was 6-foot-4 and full of muscle, wearing only a belt that loosely clanked against a bottle he clasped in his right hand and shorts.

I cautiously walked up to him, not sure how he would react to a fellow DownUnder-ese.

"Uh." I started off simply, trying to catch the man's attention, "Do you speak-a my language?"

The man turned his head slightly and dark black eyes bored into my own.

He smiled a little and handed me a package.

I opened it and saw a sandwich nestled in the wrappings. I glanced back up at the man, who was now sitting in front of a lamp-post, tapping a rhythm on his crossed leg.

"I come from a land, DownUnder in fact, my fellow kinsman. I feel as though we have been tossed out of our land for the same reason, little cousin."

I stared at the man, slack-jawed, "How long ago?"

He paused in his tapping.

"Five years. I always feel like going back, but I know that I would most likely die before I even got close to DownUnder, again." He looked at me with lorded eyes, "You are new here. I'd say you've been here three days."