Jeremy's Escape

The Man

A fog of panic clouds his eyes as his boots sink into the thick mud. His hands jet wildly into the fog; they search for a steady branch to grasp or a vine to pull.  He can smell the withdrawing rain and taste the heavy air. The humidity has its sweaty fingers wrapped around his lungs. They clutch and grasp tighter with each heavy footstep, shaking and jerking his chest, making it impossible to take in any deep breaths. He begins to feel woozy, the once refreshing smell of the jungle makes his head spin. The smell is too sweet, and he is too hungry, tired, and hot. It smells like trees, fruit, grass, leaves, wet bark, and pollen. He feels nauseous as the enticing, but torturing, rank of the vegetation rakes his dry throat. His ears pound and ring, making it so that he can't even hear himself wheeze.

"It hasn't even been a day yet," he groans.

He looks at the sun, still high in the sky, and wipes his sweating brow. The blond traveler cannot even run his fingers through his hair without becoming weak. Nevertheless, he trudges on. He knows that if he sits down for a second, he'll never get up.

He shoves past bush after bush and catches his arms on countless thorns and
overhangs. At long and sweet last, beyond a misshapen blob of a bush, there is light, not just sunlight, but heaven's light, or so it seems to him. He comes to a hill with a deep slope and a sharp peak. He grasps his knees with his hands and wills his legs forward. The exhaustion is overcoming and he is nearly crawling up the grassy hillside on all fours.

At the top of the hill, he sees a town, his town, and his heaven.


The Tree

The rain is gone and the tree's leaves, her leaves, drink in the water through her tiny pores. She breathes in and out through these same pores. Her branches, her arms, remain still without any wind to stir them. She cannot dance on a windless day such as this. She must stand and watch as life passes her by.

Life is living, not just the number of sunsets.

Even now, she must watch as a man slumps sluggishly past her. He, in this weak state, is more alive than she has ever felt. He just doesn't know it. When he takes hold of her branch, it is the first time she's been touched in decades. He doesn't bother himself with gentleness. He clasps her hand, maybe the same way he has clasped his mother's hand or his lover's. The things she would do to be him for one day! She is alive, yes, but she does not live. Cuts hurt her, of course, but if she died, what would she leave behind, what would she be missing out on? Another day to photosynthesize perhaps?

She watches this man move. She watches him cough and sweat. He has a destination, a journey. No matter how hard the trek is or torturous each step, he has somewhere to go, something she doesn't have. She has never felt the strong suction of mud beneath a boot or brushed sweat from her face

He walks just beyond the jungle's rim, away from her domain, her cage. He goes where she wishes she could. She sees the townsmen daily, with their carts and animals. She wants to talk to them, sometimes the wind will whistle through her leaves, but no one cares to listen. No one will dance with her or sing.

No, she doesn't live.