"Finality"
"Chasing trees, I've been chasing trees all day." he spoke to no one in particular, there was no need. Not an ear was focused on his words. "They sit there, you know? All the time, they stand, they wave, they laugh." He smiled without joy. Two large men walked by,
"The world's falling to pieces. I don't know what Jackson is going to do, his wife is about to..." they passed, voices trailing. A finch landed on a nearby branch.
"And I chase them, in and out, day and night, every hour. I sleep, but they're there. Trees, they used to be such good things." A dull green tennis ball whisked over his head. The girl who threw it couldn't have been more than nine years old.
"Sorry!" she yelled. He smiled, she giggled and ran toward her brother who had caught it. In just a few years she'll be getting fucked by some high school kid. Maybe she'd love him. Maybe she'd just be a whore, most of them were. The boys weren't any better. Her brother probably already was fucking someone's sister. The things kids do to pass the time.
"One day the trees just stopped being wonderful. They're immortal, or they're dead."
A lady jogged by, huffing and puffing. Years of smoking on her face. She'd probably said we all have to die sometime. Seems a contradiction to exercise then. Maybe she's hoping for a heart attack. Everyone is, we just hate to admit it. Inside, we're all smoking. Outside we exercise. Or fuck. The things adults do to pass the time.
"The dead can't talk. The immortal won't. Centuries of history silently kept, not shared. I never cut down a tree, why would they exact this vengeance upon me? To hold volumes hostage from your comrades. It's insanity." The wind picked up, his hair wisped in the wind and scattered leaves took to their escape. They were let down, the wind had an aversion to being a savior. It knows what happened to the last one. He closed his eyes and drowned his lungs in the air. No heart attack.
"I don't know what she wants," The large men began another pass, "all I know is, she spends too much time with that tailor." Two young boys dashed into the bathroom.
"He's gay, I don't know what your concern is." Silence. They walked. One nodded toward him, he smiled. He knew the tailor.
"I don't think he's gay. There's just no way. She spends too much time with him."
"Trust me, he is. He and my son went out for a while. Remember how..." their voices now nothing more than microorganisms. His ears didn't carry a microscope. His mind knew enough though. The tailor was the go-to guy for unhappy wives. He had a partner in this business. The tailor hates homosexuals.
He continued. "The trees are insane. We, we are abused. I cut one once, to make it talk. Slowly knowledge seeped from it. I lapped it up. I had caught it. It knew everything I knew, save for one thing. It didn't know my name. It was too young, all that work and I caught a child." The lady jogged by. No heart attack. She was trying. Her insides gasped.
She looked over as a deep moan pervaded the air. The brows on her head seemed like they were learning Calculus for the first time. She passed and Silence followed. Silence parted for muffled sobs.
"I should have known. With all my ability, the adults have eluded me every time. I'm only capable of outmaneuvering the post-saps. No one will apprentice to me. The trade will die with me. Volumes lost from apathy." The finch flew away. The young girl and her brother ran by. Their parent's followed. As they passed, they nodded and the wife smiled. He smiled back. He knew her once, a year before her husband asked her for forever. She looked back once more, her eyes spoke of papers that ceased long ago.
He spoke in a sigh, "The trees know of such beauty. The saps don't. Some do, perhaps. I tasted the knowledge of one of them. In time, they shall have such records."
Two young boys exited the bathroom. Shame took the place of the younger's eyes. The older smiled , spoke through a microscope, and the younger followed. He watched them walk away. He knew what time would do. It would see one mocking the gavel whilst understanding minions cried for his freedom, they themselves incapable of such vanities as he. The airwaves will be heavy for months, if not years.
It would guide the other to self-annihilation. A small portion of a sliced, dead tree will be heavy with a few blots of ink. The old church will condemn him.
The goblin serving as a tombstone until at long last the goblin starves as another is fed.
"I've been chasing trees most of my life. I don't know when it happened. When it was that my stories fell on deaf ears, and when my ears were kept empty of their stories."
He met with silence and pondered where his words were being directed. The sun pulled away and he slept as an ant crawled across his shoe. There was no heart attack. |
Submission Name: Finality
