Prompt: Character’s worst fear
Sometimes in the quiet and the cool, the water roiling over his legs and middle as he sat in the plastic chair from the Dollar General he purchased for this very purpose and had carried the quarter mile through the wood to the spot he had found, under the tree that had fallen over a bend in the creek, maybe from a great storm in some years past or as the soil was pulled from beneath it by the very stream that watered it, sometimes under the tree in the creek Mike found himself in a mood.
The tree was a great solid thing, bigger around than twice his body and he admired it for living even fallen as it had. The trunk of the tree was a footpath over the water below and it had redirected the growth from the its top as it had stood, to the branches pointed skyward where it had fallen, the leaves green and prolific that shaded the creek under it, the life struggle of the tree and the desperate growth a canopy for Mike from the blistering sun so intent on burning and blasting his skin.
At the bend there under the ruined tree, the creek did not roar or fall but murmured quietly and Mike nodded in the chair despite the lack of support for his head and neck, he couldn’t sleep there, but he could lose himself from any strong wakefulness and drift in his thoughts as the creek chilled his body and whispered it’s secrets to him. Sometime a breeze might start the leaves of the fallen tree and they rustled against each other and the conversation from the tree came to him, of how it knew it was doomed but that it had not agreed and simply continued in doing what it knew to do despite the events of the world trying to dictate otherwise.
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I never got to the fear, it was going to be something about the struggle against inevitable defeat, or something like that. For a 20 minute effort though, I thought it had some good things about it, and clearly some problems. But I set out for description and I think I got there.
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I sent my brother a nice hardback copy of Cold Mountain I found at the Goodwill. It still had the dust jacket and actually looked as if it had never been opened but that it had set on a shelf for a couple of years. He may like it. I came across a paperback copy the next time I went to the St Vincent DePaul, very pristine and with Jude Law and Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger on the cover. They must have given me the senior discount at the checkout though, 50 cents is all they charged me. I read the first chapter this morning and had forgotten how good it is. That is a lot of book for 50 cents.
Walking the Dogs 