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Jan 4, 2023 07:47
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 21:15 |
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My story is from: 2 Kings chapter 6 Goodbye, Hello 1373 words Paul was born with small, incompetent hands. With his umbilical cord still attached, the midwife held the child aloft for his mother to admire. Seeing the tiny, vernix-covered digits wrapped part way around her outstretched forefinger she exclaimed: “My son is destined to be a great scholar!” with a nervous smile. Growing up, Paul was ignorant of his destiny. He tried to play with the other kids, but his friend group dwindled with each failed excursion. They stopped inviting him to the fishing hole after too many instances of the hooked fish yanking the pole out of his feeble grasp. He was left behind on the ground as they laughed overhead in the tree branches. He was sent home from baseball tryouts because there were no gloves small enough for him. Paul was sitting at the table when his mother arrived home. He quickly wiped away his tears, but it was too late. “Did that grouper bully you again?” his mother asked. Paul shook his head. [something more here] His mother sighed, climbed on top of a chair, and took a rusty coffee tin down from the top shelf. He opened it and tipped it toward Paul. It was filled with a tight roll of bills. “I have been saving to send you to the private school up the hill. You know, for special kids. It’s not enough yet, but I could pick up more hours down at the lumberyard and save up the rest by Christmas.” She sat down and held his small hands in her thick, calloused counterparts. “If that’s something you’d want?” Paul found scholarly work more suitable for his delicate fingers. He hardly ever dropped a pen, and there was nothing wrong with his ability to grasp Newton’s laws or fathom the microscopic structure of the cell. But most of all, each of the other kids was weird in their own way, and none of them endeavored to play sports. Elisha was Paul’s best friend, and the most popular kid in school. He had a rockstar haircut, a chain wallet, and said words like “drat” and “whatever.” Elisha was many kids’ best friend, and throughout the school year it became more and more difficult to cram all of his friends into the treehouse they’d been meeting up in after school. Paul practically had somebody sitting in his lap when they all tried to cram in one evening to watch Elisha play video games. “Hey Elisha, maybe we could move to the chess club house or something?” Paul said. “No, I like the treehouse,” said Elisha. Everybody nodded in agreement, and Paul blushed and wished somebody would just sit on him and hide him from the peering eyes of the crowd. “But you’re right, we’ve outgrown this place. If we all work together, we can make it bigger. Everybody should go into the woods and chop down a tree, bring it back here, and we’ll make an extension big enough for us and anybody else who wants to join us. You all brought your axes, right?” The bustling murmur of ax chat filling the room as the kids all confirmed that of course they had packed their axes. Paul averted his eyes and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Oh yeah, me too, definitely.” “Ok, everybody go grab your ax, and we’ll meet back here.” Paul climbed down the rope ladder and ran not toward the dorm rooms with the other children, but toward the bus stop. He boarded a bus and took it the 10 minute ride to his mother’s house. He peeked through the window and saw that she was sleeping, and he snuck inside. Her work ax was resting against the wall next to the door where she normally kept it. It was oiled and whetted to a razor thin edge. Once Paul had knocked it over and it’d cut straight through the floor and ended up under the house. It was his mother’s most prized possession, and her livelihood. Paul prayed silently for forgiveness as he grabbed the oak handle and ran back to the bus stop. He was the last one to arrive back at the treehouse. Only Elisha was there. “Oh Paul, I thought you’d fallen asleep. All the other kids have already left. You might be able to catch up to them if you hurry.” Paul choked back his tears at being left behind yet again, and drew in a long, deep breath. “I… don’t know where the forest is.” “No worries, I’ll go with you,” said Elisha, picking up his own ax. “I know a good spot none of the other kids know. We’ll get the best logs and make everybody else jealous,” he said with a wink. He led them to a small stand of trees near a brook and rested his normal-sized hands on the trunk of the straightest tree Paul had ever seen. “You work on this one,” said Elisha. “You bring this back and the other kids will go beserk.” Paul smiled and lifted the ax. It’s girthy handle felt like a tree trunk itself in his diminutive hold. He gripped it as tight as he could and swung with fervor. Surprisingly, the blade sunk into the tree at the perfect angle. “I did it!” he shouted. “Keep it up!” Elisha said, taking a wide stance near his own tree. Paul wrenched the blade out of the tree, gripped the handle like a vice, and swung again. It sang a song of death and hit the tree again, sending a wedge of wood zipping through the air. A smile spread across his face that he couldn’t control, he must look manic, he thought to himself as he swung again. And again. He lost himself in the meditative whacking, and if only for a moment, he imagined himself being a big strong lumberjack like his mother, felling trees by the dozens. He was mid reverie when his hands became worryingly light. He spun around just in time to see his mother’s ax head disappear into the brook. He dropped the empty handle and let out a sad squeak. “Oh drat!” said Elisha. “That’s unfortunate!” “She’s gonna kill me!” cried Paul as he fell to his knees, desperately digging through the water but finding nothing. “Who is?” “My mom! It’s her ax! I borrowed it a little.” “Whatever,” said Elisha. “You can replace it. Here, take mine.” He offered his ax to Paul. “You don’t understand! It’s an heirloom! It’s been passed on in my family for generations! She told me it was even used to kill a king once. It’s irreplaceable. It’s priceless.” Elisha rubbed his chin and nodded. “Go get a branch.” “I already tried, it’s too deep!” “Trust me.” Paul scrambled to the nearest tree and broke off a branch. He brought it back to the edge of the water. “Put it in and just swirl it around a little,” said Elisha. “Like you’re making a soup.” Paul’s mother used to make soup. He loved it. He assumed he’d never taste it again, since he was going to have to go on the lam. He sighed and put the stick in the water and made his pointless soup. The water bubbled and Paul instinctively stepped back, dropping the stick. It slipped into the brook and he looked to Elisha for guidence, but Elisha motioned him to look back and the water. The ax head floated to the surface. Paul bent down and picked up the ax head. He turned it over in his tiny hands, looking for the trickery, but it was definitely his mom’s ax head. “What the–” but his thoughts were interrupted by the cracking of a falling tree. The boys jumped out of the way at the last second as the perfect tree Paul had chopped fell to the ground. “How…” asked Paul, quite unsure how to put into words what he’d just seen. Elisha shrugged. “We should get back to the treehouse.” “You’re not going to tell me how you did that?” Elisha shook his head. “We’re all here for a reason, but what matters is we’re all here together.” Paul smiled and pushed the ax head back onto the handle.
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Jan 9, 2023 07:03
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Jan 11, 2023 05:56
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