The rain had poured for two long
weeks.
Everything was soggy: the ground, the grass, even my feet had begun to prune.
One day seemed to melt into the next; my body had started to lose all track of
time.
My body felt like it was slumping to the ground with every step I took. Just another day in paradise, I thought
as I laid down for an afternoon nap. It was a normal Wednesday that it first
happened.
I
thought it was a dream I closed my eyes and so it began. It was sunny, the
first sun I had seen it what seemed like forever. A cat was perched few
branches up and was mewing frantically. The foliage of the tree made it almost
impossible to see, but its orange fur peeked between the green and brown of the
old oak. Oddly this dream was different it was simple enough, but it was
as if I was staring through a kaleidoscope with the different prisms distorting
the entire image. At times the scene seemed clearer, but then would change
ever so slightly.
After
what felt to be a few minutes of loud meowing with not much change my view was
panned down. My gaze tracked the trunk of the tree I noticed every brake in
the bark and every knob that the tree had. I counted a full number of
eight branches stretched out from the old oak. One of the tree’s
appendages had faded from the rich brown of the other limbs to a dark charcoal
grey.
Fast forward images flashed
through my mind of the many seasons the branch had gone through before it succumbed
to the termites nesting in its bowels. I even felt how the virus spread throughout
the limb drawing the energy and life out until there was noting but darkness.
Finally
when I reached the ground I saw the morning dew had freshly kissed the grass. I
could almost hear the green turf singing with joy as the sun enveloped it with
light and nourishment. My view then zoomed out to find two small leather
white shoes standing atop the turf. Above the shoes were two equally white socks
with trimmings neatly decorating the tops. The white bare skin that
lay above was ruddy and young. These legs were plump and still retained
their baby fat. An eggshell blue small dress hung down the small
expanse of five-year-old girl, judging by her size. Her chestnut brown hair
laid in a wild tumult down her back; freckles sprinkled across her nose and
below her two large Caribbean blue eyes.
Her
eyes were fixed up into the tree as she called out in a sing-song voice, “Come
here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
The
cat’s only response was a quick sneeze followed by a quiet mew.
After three more calls to the cat the child resolved to be the cat’s rescuer. I
saw the girl’s train of thought as she saw herself climb the tree up to the
cat, where the cat mewed gaily and then sprung into her arms.
Then she was sung all the way home while rocking her precious damsel. I
noticed that the child had evidently skipped the issue with climbing down the
tree with a cat in one arm, but the thoughts of difficulty are far from the
minds of the young.
She
began her assent easily from the first branch, with one foot on the ground and
the other in the crook of the tree’s branch. Next she grabbed two
higher limbs with her hands and easily pulled herself up. The following
branch proved to be more difficult as her dress snagged on one of the lower
limbs.
She tugged until the dress eventually lost the battle and tore.
Two more branches were climbed before she reached up and heard a snap and
cracking noise. She did not see the death in the branch or test its
strength the girl hung dangling to the tree. Then she fell like a fresh
piece of linen off a clothesline that had not been properly pinned. My
perspective shifted and I was the girl tumbling down the tree.
When she came to hit the ground, I woke.
I
threw my hands down to the sides of my bed, bracing myself from the fall. I
looked up to the ceiling at the fan twirling lazily in the humid summer hazy.
Then I noticed the lack of sound. The rain had stopped. I smiled, my eyelashes
fluttered and I fell back to sleep. I did not remember the dream the next morning
nor did I take the time to read the newspaper the morning after that.
The news that a girl had fallen from a tree losing her life would never reach
my ears until many years later when I met the parents of those daughters and
remember my dream once more.
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