Life

foto: johnscutter.com

Out of the woods there came a scream as if the walls of trees had collapsed on whoever or whatever it was who was now panicked, afraid and prudently at risk. But this is not how the story goes, because the trees in all their glory still stand to this day, only taller and wiser and shading new generations of wandering souls who venture beneath them. It was only the musing of a little boy in the back pew fiddling with his action hero and inventing stories that seemed exciting at the time until they returned in dreams and somehow had a more sinister bent. But the story – yes, the story. The scream happened, and the excitement did build, as did the concern of those around, but no one was in danger, or saving a young damsel, or swinging from vines pursued by a primate prince, or carrying some lost treasure that they never really should have taken because they never really discovered it because it was never really lost and, well, I could continue I suppose, but you get the point. Instead it was an act of awakening from a dream, as I told you most suddenly had gone bad. “But it seemed so real, and it seems so true, and it seemed so urgent,” the boy muttered. At which the old man who found him sweating in bed, his dear grandfather, started laughing. “it all does,” he said. To which the boy replied, “what are you to referring to, grandfather?” And the answer he received was simple. “Life.”