When Flying Fox was young, her parent’s camp was broken into and their food stolen. She told her friend Gecko that she didn’t care, but at night she cried in the bed her Mother had made her out of a grass in a dry creek bed.
Flying Fox left home early and didn’t talk about her family much. If any of her new flock asked her about her childhood, she responded defensively or changed the subject. After a while, they stopped asking.
Gecko came to see her in the big city, but Flying Fox seemed awkward. When Gecko chirruped happily about their home creek, Flying Fox looked away.
One night, Flying Fox got drunk on overripe Morton Bay Figs and wept noisily into the night, but she made sure no one was around before she let herself go.
At the end of summer, when all the casuarinas where flowering, Flying Fox’s Mother became sick. Flying Fox had to go back to the creek to look after her, but she died. By the time Flying Fox got back to the city, everyone had claimed the flowers for themselves. Flying Fox flew and flew, but there was nothing left. Finally, just as she had given up hope, she spotted a tree with a single branch of heavy fruit. Flying Fox flapped quickly to the tree and wrapped her leathery wings around the food.
The next night, Possum found her in the tree.
‘Hello, gorgeous,’ he called. ‘How are you these days?’
Flying Fox reply was intended to discourage him in the kindest possible way. Possum, however, was not a subtle creature and didn’t understand innuendo. He scrambled up the tree.
‘What have you got there?’ he said when he reached her.
Flying Fox lifted a wing to show him her horde, but hastily lowered it again. Possum made a suitably appreciative noise, a kind of whistle between the gaps in his front teeth.
‘But you haven’t eaten a single one,’ he said.
Flying Fox wished he would go away.
After a while, Possum took out his guitar—he never travelled without it—and began to serenade her with all the love songs he knew. Flying Fox was unresponsive. She was worried he wanted her fruit.
Every night, Possum returned to Flying Fox’s tree to sing to her of his love. Flying Fox stayed in the branches, too anxious to eat. As the nights went on, Flying Fox’s resistance to Possum grew. She would brood on his infatuation during the day, convincing herself he was only interested in her food. She would screech at him whenever he set a paw on her branch.
Winter came. Flying Fox’s fruit withered. She hadn’t eaten any. When Possum came to visit her one night, he found her frozen. She had died clutching the branch so tightly that he had to gnaw it off at the stem. He buried her with it. In spring, he put blossoms on her grave.
