flash fiction – Picking Up Roots

Thunder

The drumbeat of the downpour pummeled the roof of the house. It came in a hurry, with a huge flash of lightning and a crash of thunder. We couldn’t hear anything else above the raindrops exploding upon the roof.

No one heard the bolt of lightning that split the huge oak out front. When we woke up in the morning, the pattern of sunlight coming through the front window was different. Jo was the first to go to the window and she let out a huge cry at the discovery. The rest of us rushed to her, staring in disbelief at the naked flesh of the tree staring back at us.

The tree had been in our family for generations. Our great-great-great-grandparents had carved their initials in it when they were courting. After their marriage, they’d built the house near it.

It had grown thick and strong. It’s trunk was the size of a monster truck tire. Huge arms spread over one another providing a cool canopy from the summer heat. Each generation had had swings attached to the lower branches and every child in the family was married beneath those outstretched arms.

The oak was as much a part of our family as any pet could have been. We’d taken it for granted, assuming it would be in the family for generations after we’d gone. It’s indestructibleness obvious to all of us. Now it lay before us, split open by the anger of Mother Nature.

The fault lines had been growing within us for some time. Jo, Sam and I were struggling to come to grips with our parents’ aging, while trying to allow them to do so with dignity. As the rain was beating on the house last night, Jo was trying to convince our parents that a retirement community might be a better solution than staying out at the house.

They’d been resistant to the idea, still feeling able – which they were – and not wanting to upset the routine of their lives. Sam had sided with our folks. I was somewhere in the middle. Angry words had been spoken and no one went to sleep happy.

I’m not sure if we all recognized the tree as a metaphor of sorts for the tumult we were going through, but Ma pulled us all together for a group hug. With tears in her eyes, she said it wasn’t time yet, but when it was they’d be ready.

That was as close as we’d come to peace in quite some time.

Spent

It was all spent. Dripping from him onto the floor. He fell to his knees as the weakness overcame him. There was nothing left to give; no greater depth he could plumb. What there was in him had been given.

He let himself slide from his knees to his back so he stared up at the ceiling. The only thing keeping his soul from the sky was the roof of this place. He was satisfied he could rest now.

It had been a difficult mountain they had climbed. It was a group effort; everyone giving everything they had. It wasn’t a competition to see who had given more, but one of his tenets was that no one would out work him. He also taken on the emotional responsibility of the group; turning himself into a sounding board for all the anger and fear – charging himself with turning those emotions into the positive energy they would need to finish the climb.

All of it fell from him now. It was a relief to have the world fall away. He felt his shoulders unclench. He felt light. It was good. His breath flowed slow and smooth. That was interesting. He hadn’t realized how difficult it had been to breathe in the last month.

The voices of the others – the noises of the room – faded. The ceiling beckoned. He wanted to touch the sky. A pair of eyes and then a face came into view, then another and another. The group was around him now, looking at him.

His just calmed heart began to hammer in his chest. With his eyes he begged them not to say the words he could see in their faces. His mouth wouldn’t form the words.

“We still need you.”

He didn’t know how to say ‘no.’

Dark Shadows

In the shadows of the moon our sins reveal themselves. The darkness presents the illusion of safety, allowing us to be ourselves; to let loose that which we keep caged up inside. We dream our biggest dreams in the night.

Phin was no different from anyone else. Bored by his lack of engagement during the day, he took to the streets at night. He roamed the city, from neon awning to neon awning in search of his true self.

This self was the one he dreamt about during the day. The one who was smooth in his conversations, tough in his walk and talk, with an income that put nothing beyond the reach of his grasp – someone people were interested in.

Every night he strutted through the city, shoulders back, king of his world. Confident that around the next corner, at the next bar, he’d find the culmination of his dreams.

With his head back, looking up at the stars, he failed to notice those with no time to dream, watching him from the shadows, their desperate eyes waiting for the right moment to strike.

On a dark night with no moon, when the blackness was its own shadow, they struck. Phin was pulled into a dark alley. They knew enough to avoid the head, but their pipes and kicks danced a hard number across his torso.

Their agile fingers whispered through his pockets, taking what little was there. Their anger roused by his lack of substance their boots rained down on him again.

Even if he could have moved, he would not have. He stared up at the darkness and thought about how now someone would be interested in him. Police or medics, it didn’t matter. He’d tell them little. That would keep them on the hook. He smiled.