"WHEN
THE BOUGH BREAKDANCES" (3rd Place)
by Nipples Cooley
Janvier wrote a letter
to the Sun. And sent it on the wings of the autumnal breeze. A leafy
parasol cooled Janvier as he perched lazily upon the superior boughs
that nearly overhung the cottage of his sweet Systole. He chipped
at the birch bark with his bare feet. Peeling with his major and medial
toes as one would with their thumb and forefinger. Absently at first,
but as he shaved larger strips away, he began focussing catatonically
on the task at foot. Lazily he stared at the limb, as though through
it. Distantly intense, his stripping effort evolved into a hewing
of the branch, an evisceration far surpassing the innocent skinning
of the arboreal shell. Janvier was ignorant of the steady patter the
falling residue created upon the rooftop of Systole's cabin.
Systole ran from around
the back and called out, "Hush! Hush, my love!" in an airy shout.
"My father who sleeps within will be awaked by the clatter." Janvier
had begun heel-striking the adjacent branches with terrific force,
producing an audible "knock" that ricocheted off the foothills of
Mount Rheullard. His left foot was now quite bruised and began stippling
with blood as he hacked ferociously at the mighty wooded monolith.
The slapping echo could now be heard from the crest Foisson's Hill
to the Brandtt Flats.
Systole sprinted to
the base of the great birch and threw her sights skyward. The descending
barkdust cascaded into her face, dropping her like a stone as she
clutched her now fiery, formerly emerald, eyes. She gasped upon inhaling
the pestilential debris snowing from the force of Janvier's footywork.
As she dragged her birch bit bathed body to her knees, she cast her
glance groundward, and noted a rapidly growing shadow. This vision
was coupled with a tremendous crashing sound of limb and leaf from
well overhead. As she turned those ruby green gazers toward the treetop,
she hadn't even time to cover them, let alone avoid the hastily descending
75 pound birch branch that she unintentionally kissed upon it's unruly
groundbound arrival.
Janvier sat comatically
still. His bloodied bunions had beaten through and through the bulky
bough.
"I'll be quiet my
love. I shan't spit a syllable."
Systole slowly rolled
her onto her back and pulled herself away from the felled tree arm
at the point of perforation of her personage. She felt lightheaded
(and rightly so as she was, in fact, light by exactly one head). She
silently placed a solitary finger to a spot just above her abruptly
plunging neckline and cast it in Janvier's direction. Janvier replied
with a similarly soundless gesture to his lips.
Systole scampered
to the back door and carefully climbed the steps. She swung open the
screen door and found her mother. Foot tapping, arms crossed and mouth
screwed up perturbedly.
"Systole, you have
some explaining to do. Look at that dress. Don't you know that it's
unbecoming of little girls to go prancing about soaked in blood? Sans
cranium? Come now and let's clean you up and send you off to Dr. Pritchard
toute suite. Honestly... decapitated!"
Systole's stump drooped
exaggeratedly to compensate for the head that was already well sunk
into the turf outside. It slouched ever-so slightly beyond that to
make up for the absence of eyes that would have surely been cast sheepishly,
if they were not permanently cast into the hide of the mighty birch
branch. Her mother could not understand the pain in her heart. Not
in her heart.
Janvier wrote a letter
to the Sun. The Sun scanned it and e-mailed it to all the planets
and most of the constellations along with a jpeg of him mooning Zeus.
Also in this collection:
- "Audrey's Teardrops"
- "A Second Chance for Timmy"
- "Why My Pants Get Big Sometimes"
