3rd Grove

The boy sat on the ridge of the hillside facing west. The sun caught him directly in the face and he squinted. In the distance the pieces of water that were not shadowed by cloud glimmered with sunlight.

It had been wet the past days and the ground he sat on was still moist. He could feel the moisture dampening the seat of his pants and he knew that if he did not move in the next few minutes the wet would soak through his boxers and his return walk would be cold. There were still a few hours of daylight left but he had been gone since morning and his people would begin to miss him shortly.

“That will teach them” he thought, and adjusted his position slightly.

He wasn’t far from home, four or five miles, but looking down over the valley with the trees above and behind him he felt distant and small. He didn’t want to stay out any longer. The land, while familiar, was eerily quiet and he knew that he would be scared when it was dark.

The band of glimmering water in the distance was wider now, nearly as wide as his range of vision. “I have probably misjudged the time” he thought. “It will probably be dark in an hour, maybe less.”

He stood quickly and felt his backside, but was unable to tell whether it was wet or cold from the cold ground. He looked over his shoulder and could see the outline of moisture on his bottom. Behind and above him a breeze ran through the tree grove. The rustling of the leaves increased the hollowing feeling growing inside him.

He turned back toward the water and again the glimmering band seemed to widen. Only a few minutes had past but it felt like he had been on the west-facing hillside for hours. He was sure then that he had misjudged the sunlight. “It is going to be dark any minute” he thought and felt an uneasiness rise at the base of his throat. His movements quickened and he fought off an impulse to run.

“Nothing has changed” he told himself, now speaking quietly but out loud. “Nothing has changed.” But he knew that it wasn’t true. Everything had changed. He had misjudged the daylight. It would be dark any minute and he was miles from home. His pants were wet and he was cold.

His mind flashed to his home, his backyard, and the ease he felt there late in the day. He remembered the details of the space, the smell, the refracted sunlight that lingered in the upper corners of the yard before dark settled. The arguing from the night before was not a consideration now. He could not remember why he had come out here alone, what he was trying to prove.

He looked down to his bag which had slid down of the worn hill face and come to a rest some 30 yards below. It looked out of place against the brown green ground. He thought back to the morning, in his room, stuffing the bag with tee shirts and books. He had been angry then.

He looked back up the hill to the Eucalyptus above him. Through the swaying branches he could see pieces of moving blue sky. He took a deep breathe and moved down the hill to where his bag rested. He picked it up and again turned back toward the horizon. "I can come back," he thought. "This will be here," and he began deliberately ascending the hill.

In the distance, through the bare tree trunks he could see the path he had come by. It was shaded but he knew that around the corner it would be covered in light.