Words on Wednesday
Posted: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 by Travis Cody inSo, Stewart over at House of Sternberg set a writing assignment. The theme is Renewal and the challenge is to make an emotional statement.
The piece I set out to write is not the piece I have posted today. As with so much of my new work these days, I started typing with a basic idea and my thoughts told my fingers where to go.
So I present...uhm...this piece actually has no title.
“Hang on Toby!!”
Toby couldn’t spare any breath to answer. It took all he had to keep squeezing his fingers around the exposed root. He knew he was going to fall. He just didn’t think he should give in so easily.
Such a stupid thing and he’d known better. Just last summer he’d nearly slid over the edge chasing jack rabbits. That’s why Papaw had the fence built. Papaw always shook his finger and grumbled on and on about mule-headed boys.
“Three hunnerd acres,” the old man groused. “Still y’all rush on out to that soft pack yonder, like some stubborn ole jackass grazin’ after the sweet grass.”
It hadn’t always been so loose up on the bluff behind the sprawling ranch. Toby’s Daddy and uncles had played out there as boys, when the blue spruce had grown thick. Back then you could sit beneath one of the dense trees and gaze out over the bay, listening to the waves wash against the cliff face 200 feet below.
The rains had come earlier and more intense over the years. The bluff turned muddy. Disease had taken most of the trees. The rest had gone into the bay as the edge of the cliff eroded and the bluff became a dangerous place to walk.
But as often as you can tell a boy to mind the edge, that point doesn’t seem to settle until he catches up against it. And even then, the lesson doesn’t always hold.
A small avalanche of loose dirt and pebbles washed over Toby’s head and down his back. He heard a muffled oath and the sound of scrambling above him. All that rain that Papaw had praised over the winter…this spring it was about to cost the old man his youngest grandson. Toby reckoned there was no way they could get to him with the ground so soft at the ledge. That’s why he was in this mess.
That, and not wanting to lose the new baseball. Chris always threw it too hard. Toby was learning to catch better, but sometimes he just ducked out of the way and then ran to fetch the ball. Toby got a good giggle as he ran too, because he knew his big brother would be annoyed. But then Chris would throw it a little softer so Toby could catch a few before he started winding up for high hard ones again.
Then the baseball rolled under the fence. And Toby skittered beneath the rails, running to get the new ball without a thought. And the ground evaporated beneath his feet.
By chance he caught the root, and now Toby dangled by one hand about 20 feet below the new ledge, with Chris yelling at him to hang on. Toby had watched his new glove tumble through the air and hit the water. The splash looked so tiny. He didn’t see what happened to the new baseball. He’d saved his allowance all winter for that glove. It’d take him another six months to save up to replace it…if he didn’t fall.
It wouldn’t be so bad to fall, would it really? Like the glove…just floating down and down and down. Flying. And then a little splash in the water.
The ground shifted. The root bent and creaked. Toby tightened his grip. His hand was starting to cramp. He didn’t really want to fall. He tried again to dig his feet into the cliff face, but they just scrabbled at the loose rock. His shoulder strained and he felt his fingers slip.
“Help Chris!! I’m gonna fall!” Toby's thin voice cracked as the panic started.
Toby tried to reach his other arm up so he could grab the root with both hands. The stabbing pain reminded him why he was dangling by just one hand. Tears of fear and frustration burned in his eyes.
Something dropped past him. He gasped and cringed. His fingers let loose of the root and he screamed.
But he didn’t fall. He felt a strong grip around his waist and heard his Daddy’s deep voice.
“It’s ok now. I gotcha.”
Toby opened his eyes and looked at the waves crashing against the rocks below.
Nope – it wouldn’t have been so good to fall.
"grazin’ after the sweet grass.”
Isn't that what it's all about? Trying to get to that sweet grass, even if it's a little dangerous?
Luckily Toby had someone to catch him when he fell...not everyone can say that.
Great story.