The Green
The Green
I’m running through the woods, lost in the forest around me. My sister is counting, “Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten — ready or not — Here. I. Come!” Her footsteps are crashing, but she’s not close enough to see me. I press myself down onto the ground, flattening the previously untouched grass around me. It’s tall and thick enough to enclose me back into its cocoon.
Cautiously, I roll onto my side and then lower to my back. She’s still crashing around, but the noise is moving away from me. The wind is flickering the poplar leaves above, but the brush is too dense and nothing moves on the ground. Bugs and twigs and broken leaves are in my hair, but I don’t notice. A chickadee lets out its two-tone whistle. After a pause, it gets a reply.
She’s going the wrong way. I can’t hear her anymore. Most likely she’s gone too far, we are supposed to stay on our side of the Green, otherwise we can’t hear Mom when she calls. We don’t say it out loud, but this doesn’t matter. I’ll hear her and then get my sister. Or the other way around. Unless, of course, we are mad at each other. In that case, one will abandon the other to our mother’s wrath for straying too far.
