It was the summer and Ryan had just moved here. We were 7, maybe 8.
Under the shade given by the maple’s canopy, we’d play through the fences that divided our lives. Him with a tuft of blonde and me with the beginnings of a rat-tail.
Then, there was innocence in our pastimes, nestled in the feeling of immortality within that bubble of youth.
Still, there was undeniable tension in the air. Pressure, in the background, always pushed at the door and needed to be kept at bay.
The future always threatened to sneak up on us.
yan climbed the tree in his backyard while I watched from safety. Awestruck, I wanted to witness disaster. His weight proportioned upon the tinning boughs and branches of the top, his prepubescent eyes were wide in comprehension as Ryan saw our position in the world for the first time.
And he had climbed so damn high. I could barely see him in the sunlight.
My mother was in the yard, on the phone. She screamed to Ryan’s parents.
She could make out his figure through the afternoon’s light. She could see him, even when my eyes could no longer distinguish Ryan from the leaves.
waited.
he adults, from our respective households, gathered around to coach him down, to safeguard Ryan’s return trip back to earth, and ultimately make sure bones didn’t end up broken.
And I waited.
Ryan edged down, twisted around the trunk, as the entire tree seemed to sway forebodingly in the wind.
waited: for the worst to happen, the accident that would surely scar my childhood and doom my, then still far off, adulthood.
I waited for him to fall and for myself to go through the motions of the whole tragic waste of a youth’s life cut short sort of thing and the tiny casket and the inevitable routine of us continuing to play across the fences.
Still, even in death, together, friends, despite some sort of separation. nd Ryan would be there, whether by supernatural or psychological causes. He’d push army men through the mud. A pillow case, doubled as a cape, tied around my neck.
I waited for something important to happen and for all which I had been prepared.
I waited and held my breath, each time the tiny sneakers reached through space for another branch below them.
I waited that entire afternoon and still wait my whole life.