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Skyward
The brilliantly blazing sun spoke down to her from far, far above. At her very young age she did not yet understand the words it whispered. Or perhaps she was not quite close enough to hear. Staring up, stretching up, her tiny, bare, dirt-clad feet lifted her as far up as she could go. Holding herself there for as long as her shaking toes and legs would allow her, the gentle, teasing breeze obscuring the words that she would certainly hear otherwise, Autumn Rowe closed her squinting eyes in the hope that depriving herself of one sense would augment the one she found lacking. The resulting wave of dizziness which caused her to lose her precarious balance pitched her body forward against the tree.
Of course, she thought (and said, still being young enough at seven years old to not realize, or not care, that she was doing both). The narrow crooks and crevices of the bark were not so narrow to one her size, and she had just enough strength and energy to slide her fingers into them, grasping the rough bark. Clinging to the trunk with every limb, her face pressed against the syrupy and sticky sap, she pulled herself, inch by glorious inch, closer to the voice above.
Soon enough she reached the lowest canopy of branches. From her newfound perch she paused and listened once more. In the distance she heard the rumble of cars darting past her street on the four lane road her father would not let her cross alone. Much closer, she heard the chirping of birds startled by her presence, but without the presence of mind to fly away. Beneath and beyond all of that, the cacophony of sounds, the voice called her still.
As she stood up on the branch, her stomach swish-flopped and the pull of what she would someday learn was called ‘gravity’ called to her more loudly and more forcefully than the distant sun ever could. Knowing that she suddenly needed to be back on the ground, she gripped the tree to steady herself as she stared down, searching for a path that looked as safe as the path upward had been. She couldn’t think with the thump, thump, thump in her ears, drowning out every other noise. She felt trapped, buried, the light of the sun disappearing as it fled westward, racing to the earth far faster than she dared. She felt…
…the wind rushing past and into her ears with the force of a locomotive.
This is the first third of the story that's been driving me nuts for the last couple of months. Any feedback on what I have so far would be appreciated (good or bad).
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