Falling Tree
A cascade of late afternoon sunlight seeps through the holes of an intricate layer of green maple leaves, except for one spot where the contour of a girl's figure can be traced sitting on a bulky branch. She sat very still, her ankles were dangling and unmoving. A little man entered under this umbrella of a tree for a closer look. The foot of her brown dress was torn and the loose ends of the fabric fluttered in the breeze. The man observed for a good minute before he cut in.
"Must you be reading your book up there? It's dangerous," he said.
"What do you know? Have you been up here before?" she replied, still buried in her book.
"Isn't it just the same to be reading down here? Look at this carpet of green grass. Would it not be more comfortable to sit down here? What about resting your back against this trunk, or that little rock over there? Wouldn't that be safer and just as comfortable?"
She was unresponsive. The man's emergence irritated her. She began to kick the air.
"Miss, it worries me that you're reading up there. There's something unnatural about what you're doing. I'm just concerned about why you went up there, what was going through your head, and whether something happened,"
She stopped kicking. He continued.
"But then you seem to be reading so intently, not once looking at your surrounding, that I become angry over your arrogance, to be sitting up high above us, all to yourself. Look, you aren't even looking at me as I'm talking to you. Do you think you know more than the rest of us?"
She snapped her book close. She looked up for a second few seconds as a wincing expression brushed over her and she became wobbly, perhaps from having to suddenly adjust to the infinite space she had abandoned during her meditation, the same way one would react to bright lights that suddenly cut into a dark room. She dropped her book and fell. The man motioned to support her, but he doubted his ability to support her weight. A glimpse of a thought took hold and he backed up.
She landed on her left side somewhere between the knee and the hip. Then the rest of her body folded together to shield her injured body in an action that was neither a hug nor a roll but rather a desperate struggle of a person whose bare limbs were not enough to attend to her aching body. It was a frantic sprawl of a human on the grass. She pushed herself up and dashed past the man before he had the chance to make up for his inaction. He picked up the book on the ground.
"Your book, Miss! Your book!"
He only yelled once, and yelled no more. She showed no intention of wanting to go back for her book, and the man couldn't move his feet to run after her because his body was burning from the realization of something distasteful. She was now limping away, but moving awfully fast, pushing down her right side and softening on her left, in a determined rhythm as if the adjustment to this way of movement was nothing new. At what point she became totally invisible he couldn't remember. The grassfield stretched afar and there weren't any trees in the visible distance.
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*** I wrote this story but I can't make sense of it...
"Must you be reading your book up there? It's dangerous," he said.
"What do you know? Have you been up here before?" she replied, still buried in her book.
"Isn't it just the same to be reading down here? Look at this carpet of green grass. Would it not be more comfortable to sit down here? What about resting your back against this trunk, or that little rock over there? Wouldn't that be safer and just as comfortable?"
She was unresponsive. The man's emergence irritated her. She began to kick the air.
"Miss, it worries me that you're reading up there. There's something unnatural about what you're doing. I'm just concerned about why you went up there, what was going through your head, and whether something happened,"
She stopped kicking. He continued.
"But then you seem to be reading so intently, not once looking at your surrounding, that I become angry over your arrogance, to be sitting up high above us, all to yourself. Look, you aren't even looking at me as I'm talking to you. Do you think you know more than the rest of us?"
She snapped her book close. She looked up for a second few seconds as a wincing expression brushed over her and she became wobbly, perhaps from having to suddenly adjust to the infinite space she had abandoned during her meditation, the same way one would react to bright lights that suddenly cut into a dark room. She dropped her book and fell. The man motioned to support her, but he doubted his ability to support her weight. A glimpse of a thought took hold and he backed up.
She landed on her left side somewhere between the knee and the hip. Then the rest of her body folded together to shield her injured body in an action that was neither a hug nor a roll but rather a desperate struggle of a person whose bare limbs were not enough to attend to her aching body. It was a frantic sprawl of a human on the grass. She pushed herself up and dashed past the man before he had the chance to make up for his inaction. He picked up the book on the ground.
"Your book, Miss! Your book!"
He only yelled once, and yelled no more. She showed no intention of wanting to go back for her book, and the man couldn't move his feet to run after her because his body was burning from the realization of something distasteful. She was now limping away, but moving awfully fast, pushing down her right side and softening on her left, in a determined rhythm as if the adjustment to this way of movement was nothing new. At what point she became totally invisible he couldn't remember. The grassfield stretched afar and there weren't any trees in the visible distance.
----------------------------
*** I wrote this story but I can't make sense of it...
posted by Adam C at
3:00 AM
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