by Tuttle, Dan;
When weekend came they found an old thing to
help keep them occupied. “Remember when
we first got spooked? That thing dive-bombed, withdrew
when BLING barked. I say let’s three go again
to find the banyan strip,” Abu proposed.
YIP YIP! assented BLING. Stel lingered, reached
into her satchel, actions undisclosed.
Her hand emerged palm up, the sunlight bleached
its handmade contents: newly-crafted crest
of body falling free and ’fly in flight.
“A Badge for Numbskulls?” Abu grinned and guessed.
“No, no! It’s fine to know your kryptonite
is having heart too big to simply see
and not to act to fix a tragedy.”
86.
“Repairing tragedy,” reply began,
“is never quite the aim of what I do.
I’d rather take the path that every man
ought to, if situation struck them too.
The circumstances here showed I could save
a tiny life by stretching—anyone
with such a chance should take it. It’s not brave.
It’s simple rule I made there; when rerun,
it works no matter what. Clear following
a rule is easy on the brain: result’s
preprogrammed. There’s no space for wallowing
about what’s right and wrong amid tumult.
No, Stella, what helped set bug’s body free
was hardly virtue, just rule-bound duty.”
87.
“Role modeling won’t work if you’re no one.
You first need status to get copycats.”
Abu paused for a moment, point undone.
“From someone young it’s heard as soppy chat.
Wait fifty, sixty years, grow wise man’s beard,
then say the very same and you’ll be heard.”
“The message on its own can be adhered
to, doesn’t matter if it’s been conferred
by me or someone else.” “You’ve missed the crux.
The messenger’s a part. The two are joint.
An audience tunes to muckety-mucks.”
“The point is that the point is not the point?”
“Precisely.” “That’s depressing.” “Take the patch.”
Achievement was Ab’s easy itch to scratch.
88.
She handed it to him, “I now bestow
the Badge of Selflessness upon you for
your clumsy overreach three days ago
to be that dragonfly’s life-guarantor.”
“Thanks!” “Now on, put yourself first, have some sense.”
“When relevant, I will.” He winked, popped bro
fist bump, shifted attention to commence
the banyan search. Sing-song ostinato
was crooned by birds in corners left unseen
among banana fronds and pines maroon,
a forest welcome for the figurines
whose lockstep march resembled a platoon.
But neither knew that further down the way
would sinister soon meet naïveté.
89.
The gentle slope that welcomed them began
to escalate in steepness as they went
progressively into the plant Cézanne,
its murky still-life tones tinged with lament.
To match the vibrancy of lands unknown
as colored in their minds, woods’ dampened hues
weren’t adequate. Through flora overgrown,
the two kids slogged along. Work helped enthuse.
“Hey, wait!” exclaimed Abu to Stella’s back,
“I’ve seen some signs of someone else along
this route. Look over there, it’s been bushwhacked.”
Upon inspection, Stella saw no wrong
in Abu’s claim, and vigilantly moved
so that their presence could remain unproved.
90.
Soon Stella tracked the tracks to tree that took
her breath away for grandness and for girth,
Brobdignagian in beauty beyond book’s
conceivably communicated worth.
Its trunks were wider than a rhino’s length,
the branches dwarfed sequoia, rosewood, birch.
It emanated pulsing floral strength
as if they’d entered chartreuse planted church.
Abu ran sideways as he set eyes on
a camo figure climbing up the trees
that lay ahead. Shrill whisper of, “C’mon!”
brought Stella from the clearing. Conferees,
they ducked below the leaves inch out of sight,
to speak about what, seen, seemed not aright.
91.
Masked spindly thing crept cautiously, its climb
a calculated game of changing weight.
It snuck so silently, a judging mime
could hardly this performance underrate.
The smoothness of the bark suggested few
positions graspable for climbing, though
the largeness of the tree meant where trunks drew
together there were natural plateaus.
Each new shelf it passed up for any rest,
feet halting not for even moment’s pant.
It must have trained with goal to be the best,
defying gravity like clinging ant.
It free-climbed as if Honnold up El Cap,
rehearsed yet thought by audience madcap.
92.
It powdered hands for grip from belt sack. Shrub
concealed stooped Stel and Ab. BLING laid in pouch.
The figure stopped ascent and found a nub
to stabilize its sideways shuffled crouch.
It left the central trunk to stalk a nest
it spotted left of fork in major branch.
Once there, it reached and quickly dispossessed
large aerie of its eggs! The two kids blanched
at such a blatant trespass of the law,
which stated that you couldn’t hunt a beast
without a permit: buzzard, finch, macaw,
rhinoceros, or raptor. Who policed
these woods to find this criminality?
The camo figure left unanswered plea.
93.
It slinked with snakelike grace back toward the trunk,
familiarity with every move
again so fluid as to think it sunk
from conscious thought down into routine’s groove.
Controlled descent down pillar’s bark face showed
an expert knowledge of which route to take.
A sudden CRASH! that calmness overrode
as pterodactyl form made divebomb break
through sun-occluding canopy, right at
the climber. Camouflage fatigues can’t hide
effectively against a chestnut matte.
The figure, though, was hardly petrified.
Its bandaged left hand threw fistful of chalk:
such poor man’s chaff and flak did talons block.
94.
Near lower branches now, its fleet descent
continued to the ground once bird reversed.
The melee left kids mired in malcontent
and wondering if it had been rehearsed.
Stretched, lithesome figure fled through undergrowth.
No understanding of what they’d just seen
perplexed and discombobulated both.
“That happened fast, too fast to intervene,”
said Stella, sensing that somehow they’d failed.
“I wonder if this happens all the time,”
replied Abu, in fear that uncurtailed
appropriation here was paradigm.
With shallow breath, they scanned the layers of fern
to any clue about the thief upturn.
95.
<
br /> The minutes stretched from ten to twenty, when
it seemed their bodies’ energy was sapped;
the prior vein flow of pure adrenaline
dried up as hormones shut endocrine tap.
No sign of where thief went or what thief left,
not even with BLING’s help to sniff the ground,
left both kids’ limbs with artificial heft
and so they sat to gather and rebound.
Abu glanced nestwards, scanned environs: “We
should try patrolling out here in these woods.
We’ll be the only ones, since bourgeoisie
are busy in their cities, selling goods,”
as if the swell of rectitude turned lung
into the bellows for a judging tongue.
96.
Stel threw arms up in resignation, said,
“They’d rather look at glowing screens than leaves,
and love to sit. They’re mostly overfed.”
she resolutely rolled her mental sleeves
and settled it: offense of stealing meant
they’d double down on training in the deep
of woods, where they, to possible extent,
would scare off those who came to wrongly reap
the fortunes of the forest. Few months passed
in which they found their skills slowly enhanced.
On forest’s stage the season’s only cast
were rangers on patrol through vast expanse.
More so than had they camped among bookshelves,
they tested boundaries within themselves.
97.
As stories go, they had their crackjack team:
a couple Hobbes to Stella’s Calvin lead.
As Pioneers assembled, their big dream
was beanstalk-like ascent from Gumi’s seed.
One look at globe she’d held put head in clouds,
expansiveness apt for imagining.
She hooked them each with that, a hope that crowds
the cautious senses out, swift action in.
Discovering injustices nearby
had galvanized their focused righteousness,
an aim to set aright what’s left awry.
In youth, they overlooked that they might miss.
Now taken bait by one adult’s told tale,
they crafted selves to follow so-sold trail.
CHAPTER 3
98.
Back then the weather still predictably
progressed alongside seasons, carbon’s layer
not yet so thick to warm restrictively:
constrictor boa Boomers left on heirs.
This regularity helped folks prepare
for when the rainy season came. Thick boots
like Wellingtons could wade through disrepair
of swampy, sole-stuck, drainless roads. Commutes
would shift from morning walks downhill to vans
traversing mountain’s foothills. Stella, Ab
and farmers liked it lengthening lifespans
of crops, but also disliked so much drab.
Umbrellas made caprice rains doable
(at least, until we fund renewables).
99.
That March at end would bring the growing cool
into the air, which austral countries feel,
as distance from the sun leaves kilojoules
adrift in space, Earth’s annual anneal.
The winds that coursed brought kids a heightened chill,
made worse by the resurgence of the rain,
that forced recalibration ’gainst their will
from forest puttered pace to town octane.
What jarred was nearly everything: packed space,
the sharpness of materials, the smells,
the way that birds with broadcasts were replaced,
dissimilarity of cars from cells.
Excitement faded fast. The disconnect
with time grew to a metro disaffect.
100.
Kids loafed in town. They made up games. They tried
to entertain themselves among the cars.
And yet, all things left each unsatisfied
with spending days bizarre in town’s bazaars.
Some days they found with fascination toys
that other kids invented, such as trucks
whose Coke can bodies bottle caps employ
to roll down muddy lanes and bother ducks.
They crafted wands with wire prongs on the tips
to chase those trucks by rolling plastic lids,
but not one joy from this could near eclipse
the wilderness that let them just be kids.
Dispirited one afternoon, they roamed
on drainage roads that through slum honeycombed.
101.
Abu kept kicking can that BLING then chased,
with Stella sauntering four paces back.
They strolled at pace a turtle could have raced,
intention and direction wholly lacked.
As youth, their stride was short, on little legs,
accentuating length of lane and day.
“I wonder what that thief did with the eggs,”
asked boy out of the blue. “It’s hard to say,”
said Stella, seeking not to dwell on what
they couldn’t know. She tried a subject shift,
“It’s Easter soon, let’s get out of this rut.
I’m sick and tired of feeling so adrift.”
Earned shillings’ prize from selling toys they’d made
was Mango Fanta, split. On palisade
102.
they leaned. And looked. And loitered. Traffic lurched
in stops and starts before unfocused eyes,
they gazed into the distance from their perch
by street side fencing, both emitting sighs.
From Stella’s shoulder satchel BLING peeked out
with dogged innocence, and sniffed the air.
Beyond square-meter island, all about,
the people bustled, hustled daily wares.
A coupe from 1984 passed by
and spewed gray smoke from rust-brown cracked tailpipe.
It seemed the urban car oversupply
caused anger of the horn-assailing type.
A shiny truck spotlit by cloud-split sun
pulled up. Reflected brightness left them stunned.
103.
The truck’s insignia said Supa Loaf,
with three square feet of paint, the rest was pure
metallic sheen. They felt as if a stove
had spewed heat in their faces to ensure
they’d make a hasty move. Such mirror meant
intensity of sun’s rare earthward shine
between the rainy bouts was toward them bent.
It left the truck with dark cloud’s silver line
around the edges, forced them squint their eyes.
Then BLING unleashed a BARK! of mammoth verve,
and then a third! A fourth! These soulful cries
shocked. Kids snapped to, jumped. BLING this unreserved?
Alarm’s prodigious puppy power output
had yet to show them what lay underfoot.
104.
Delirium of heat and light and haze
made difficult discernment of the form
but Stella thought she saw amid the daze
some colored swirl suggesting memories warm.
But what exactly was it? Her mind combed
through missions, expeditions, labors, trips,
through undertakings, tasks, and places roamed.
Then right on brink of breakthrough, the eclipse
of technicolor spotlight disappeared.
The truck had pulled away, the air soon cooled.
But Stella felt her mind not fully cleared,
her mental faculties by vision fooled.
Abu, through discombobulation, s
poke:
“Can you believe I saw those missing yolks?!”
105.
“You what?” said Stella, face contorted in
expression of incredulousness that
within a second split dissolved, the skin
between her brows unfurled, her forehead flat:
the realization that her memories, mixed,
had settled on the same conclusion made
her almost catatonic, gaze unfixed
and distant. “Are we going nuts? Persuade
me that we haven’t just been tricked. I, too,
believe I saw the eggs you mentioned. But
I don’t know how that’s even partly true
since we were looking at a bread truck.” “What?”
replied Abu expectantly, “You saw
the same?” He rose, turned ’round, and dropped his jaw.
106.
Displayed before him lay eggs like they’d seen
the robber climb and steal from woods’ bird’s nest.
They lay in little baskets painted green,
on sale for Easter, origins unexpressed.
When Stella rose to join her friend she knew
that this was what they’d seen the truck reflect
and wondered how she’d been so dumb as to
not string these thoughts together quite correct.
Regardless, there they found their quest returned
despite discouragement from fickle sky.
As honest citizens, they pooled cash earned
from little playthings sold so they could buy
the eggs. They walked inside. They asked the price
and learned there wasn’t one. “To be precise,
107.
what do you mean there isn’t one? They’re here,
we’re in a shop, have hela and you’re mum.”
“There isn’t, msichana,” said cashier,
“we have some VIPs who come in from
somewhere in Asia, China maybe. We
keep certain lovely lively artifacts
for them.” “Like what?” “The usual. Could be
a trophy, horn, egg, rug.” “Law has impacts
on all that, right?” “Of course, we’re by the book.
They tightened export laws last year. Now, go.
These things are not for you.” “Man, let me look!”
“Ah, haya. Buy them with your eyes.” She’d no
thought why they ought to go to foreigners.
She quickly searched for other door in: “Sir,
108.
do you have more upstairs? They’re beautiful.”
“No.” “Really?” “Yes.” “Oh, tafadhali?” “Fine.
I’ll take you, then you’ll leave.” And, dutiful,
once short-lived tour concluded Stel divined
she wasn’t wanted, left. The shop soon closed.
“That shopkeep’s rather terrible,” Stel said,
