Sarah didn’t like many things.   Books took too long to read. Movies were all either boring or ridiculous. Running was way too much effort. Swimming was far too wet. Only Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2, played loudly on her headphones, made her feel alive.

Sarah didn’t like many people. Her mother was too exhausted to be interesting. Her little brother was too energetic to be tolerated. Her step-father was too rude to be listened to. Her teacher was too sweet to be believed. Only her best friend, Frankie, made her feel understood.

Sarah didn’t like many places. Her bedroom was narrow and confining. The bus stop had oil stains and smelled of exhaust. The park was too full of sad squeaking swing sets. The beach was too full of sad, squawking people. Only the spot on the end of the pier made her feel free.

Sarah was in that spot today, earbuds in her ears, Rachmaninoff in her head, butt seated on hard cement, legs dangling over the end of the pier, cheek pressed against the wooden railing, eyes on the endlessly rippling horizon. She was, for just one moment, perfectly happy.

Then the song ended, and she remembered.

Frankie the brilliant. Frankie the weird. Frankie the genius of comedy who could make Sarah laugh so hard milk came out her nose. Frankie the loyal. Frankie the kind. Frankie was moving to Iowa.

Iowa was so far way Sarah wasn’t sure it was real. Lots of corn, Frankie said. Not much in the way of hills. No ocean at all. Sarah couldn’t even imagine it.

Symphony No. 2 started up again, but now Sarah wasn’t listening. She was trying without success to picture a horizon filled with cornstalks and the sixth grade filled with girls who weren’t Frankie, while she watched the progress of the giant sea turtle that was swimming toward the pier.

There was a giant sea turtle swimming toward the pier.

Visions of Frankie drowning in waves of grain disappeared in a flash. Rachmaninoff swelled as the turtle raised its head and looked right at Sarah. He was just below her now, patiently treading water.

“I don’t like to get wet,” Sarah said.

The turtle was unmoved.

“I have my iPod with me,” Sarah said.

The turtle didn’t even blink.

“It’s not safe to climb down from this spot,” Sarah said.

The turtle waited.

Sarah took out her earbuds and set her iPod on the cement. Rachmaninoff was silenced, but her heart still beat the strong, steady rhythm of Symphony No. 2.

Sarah left her spot on the end of the pier and climbed down the wooden struts toward the cold water. She had never been to this place under the pier, but the rippling horizon remained in its place.

The turtle met Sarah where the water lapped against the pier.  It turned its back to her and she climbed on. Quickly and quietly the turtle took her out to sea.

Sarah knew that she should have felt afraid, but she didn’t. She felt alive.

The water stretched out on every side. The shore was just a smudge on the horizon. It was so very far away. Sarah lay her head on the turtle’s ridged shell and cried so hard her whole head ached. Then she told the turtle all about Iowa.

Sarah knew she should have felt ridiculous, but she didn’t. She felt understood.

The sun was sinking into the water, setting each ripple on fire as it slowly disappeared. The turtle turned back and carried Sarah back through a golden wonderland to the real world, to solid ground, to the continent that would soon swallow Frankie whole.  Sarah clung to the wooden pier as the turtle swam away.

Sarah knew that she should have felt abandoned, but she didn’t. She felt free.

Sarah climbed up to where Rachmaninoff waited in that perfect spot at the end of the pier.  She put the earbuds in and slowly walked down the pier, in the general direction of a sixth grade classroom that had no Frankie in it and of a state called Iowa, which Sarah still couldn’t imagine but now felt sure was real.

Once there was a rough and tumble, rattle-trap, loud and lively house, and everyone said it looked like a fire-cracker. It was true that its perfectly cylindrical shape, bright blue color, and red-checkered cone-shaped roof made it look like it could shoot into the air at any moment, but in reality it was firmly attached to the earth.

That didn’t mean what was inside it wasn’t explosive, though. Indeed, inside its rounded walls, lived four of the brightest, fieriest, most intense children the world had ever seen (and their parents). Their sparking brains teemed with ideas which their active bodies were quick to carry out, and of course, every one of their multiplying ideas was combustible.

Not content to built forts out of blankets and chairs like most kiddies, these children invented ways to hang sheets from the ceiling and tie ropes to the chandeliers, creating a super fort that covered two levels of the house and could be navigated by swinging like monkeys from room to room.

Simple games such as Monopoly and Clue were too boring for this crew, so instead they combined all the boards and pieces into one massive new game with rules so complex that no one could keep them straight, and every round ended in a knock-down drag-out fight.

Soap on the floor for ice skating, leaping from the bannisters onto enormous piles of stuffed animals, Lego towers that reached to the ceiling and caused serious injury when toppled, massive science experiments that involved baking soda and vinegar filling the bathtub. The house trembled with the sounds of their shouts and laughter and glowed with the heat of their incessant activity.

With such constant friction inside, you can imagine that the house needed some form of release, and like any clever house it eventually found the perfect solution. Late at night, when the little power-houses were finally asleep in their beds, storing energy for the next adventure, the house opened up the chimney on its tippy top and sent up all the sparks and steam that had been gathering in its attics all day. No doubt the neighbors would have been quite alarmed if any of them had seen it, but they were so thankful that the round blue house was finally quiet that they were always fast asleep themselves, and if any passing strangers happened to notice the strange sight, they always imagined that someone was celebrating an important occasion with a particularly sparkly bonfire.

All was well, then, until the year of the terrible bitter winter. Temperatures all over the country reached unheard of lows. Mounds of snow piled up everywhere. People both old and young were forced to stay indoors, huddled around a fire and frantically boiling water for the gallons and gallons of hot tea necessary to survive. Except of course, for those who generated their own heat by the sheer force of their existence. For example, the occupants of the fire-cracker house, who scarcely noticed the cold outside their frosty windows, so busy were they with sparkling schemes of all sorts.

Such heat indoors while the world outside is frozen may seem like a tremendous blessing, and in many ways it was, but it also brought unforeseen problems. After a full day of brilliant, crackling, wall-bouncing activity, the little house was quite filled with sparks and smoke. It waited patiently for midnight as usual, but then, to its utter dismay, when it went to open its little chimney, it discovered that it was frozen quite solid. Several inches of ice covered over with a thick blanket of snow and wrapped in a world of frigid air were too much for the huffing, puffing little house. After a great struggle, it was forced to give up and settle down to a slow all-night simmer.

Several days passed in this fashion, the heat building by day and banking up by night. Slowly the house filled with the tension of pent up energy and unreleased heat. The air was thick with steam and the temperatures reached unbearable levels. At last, the pressure became simply too much. It started as a tremble, then a squeak, as tiny cracks around the ceiling began to let out bits of super-charged air. At last, with a terrific CRACK, the ice burst away as the entire cone of the roof burst away from the house and flew up into the air.

The column of steam could be seen for miles around, and no one can say exactly how high up the roof was blasted before it began its descent. The neighbors were all drawn to their frozen windows in awe as the steam spread out, melting snow in its path. As the first heat they had felt in weeks touched their own walls, the surrounding families breathed a collective sigh of relief. Then they all watched in fascination as the odd, round roof slowly drifted back down and settled into place.

The terrible bitter winter didn’t relent, of course. Months of frozen bleakness still had to be endured. But now the whole neighborhood knew that every few days a new explosion of steam would come to break the monotony and remind them of what warmth felt like. And no one ever complained of the noise from the fire-cracker house again.

At least, not until the summer.

It ain’t easy being a shrub.

The droughts in the summer, long days of baking in the sun and the constant thirst that ten minutes under the hose at night can never even touch.  The snow in the winter, heavy weight that only gets heavier as it turns to ice, dragging your branches down into a mangled mess.

It’s a rough life, but I’ve done my best.  I’ve sucked at the dry earth and held on tight to my leaves each summer.  I’ve shivered away the winters and done my best to pull my branches back into shape with the coming of spring.  I did all this and I didn’t whimper once.  I didn’t even complain when those kids moved in and started picking at my leaves.  At least it was fun to hear them laughing while they did it.

That’s all done now.  I can no longer be silent.  This creature…this, this….dog….is too much.

Five times a day the door opens, and five times a day that creature comes bounding out.  And what is the first thing he does?  He pees all over me!  Listen people, I get it.  This is a part of nature.  I’ve had bird droppings falling on me since I was a sprout.  But do you have any idea the acid level in that dog’s pee?  It’s killing me.  Literally.

It gets worse.  For some reason, the beast has decided that his back is itchy and his incompetent paws can”t reach around to scratch it.  His solution?  He sits right down, wiggles as close to me as he can, and then throws himself backwards and writhes around, breaking branches and knocking off leaves willy nilly.  I now have a dog-sized hollow in one side, and it doesn’t improve my looks.

It’s time for this to end.  Enough is enough.  I am not a violent shrub, nor do I mean to alarm anyone, but perhaps this short story will help you see the situation.

Once upon a time there was a shrub.  He lived with his mortal enemy, the dread hound.  The dread hound attacked the peaceful shrub over and over until the shrub became desperate.  Seeing that no one was going to do anything about it, the shrub decided to take matters into his own branches.  All one night, the shrub worked at pulling his roots free from the ground.  In the morning, when the dread hound came out for his daily bullying, the shrub was ready.  He whipped his root around, beating the dread hound around the ears, until the hound ran off yelping.  The shrub gave chase, pursuing the dread hound around the house to the spot where the creature hid himself in terror under the swing set.  There, the shrub stood watch over the trembling dread hound until nightfall.  Then, of course, the shrub died because shrubs can’t live for long with their roots out of the ground.  But he died happy, and his last words were, “It was worth it.”  The people were heartbroken when they found him, for, even though they were grateful for how suddenly well-behaved their hound was, they could never replace the hole in their landscaping left by that lovely shrub.

This is not a threat.  Merely a rough sketch of one possible future.  Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

Just don’t wait too long.

Once upon a time there was a river that tumbled along between two forests.  The forest on the west side of its banks was old and shaggy with moss.  The forest on the east side was light and airy, with strong, graceful trees.  The river admired the separate beauty of each forest, but it was a passing admiration.  The river had so much to do each day, with his constant cycle of rushing toward and emptying into the ocean far away, not to mention gather waters from the mountains high above, that he had no time for looking around.

As time went on, the shaggy old forest began to grow dark.  Vines crept over the trees and grew up through the branches, keeping the sun from shining through down below.  The trees themselves creaked and groaned as if they were uncomfortable in their new clothing.  New animals came, animals that liked to hunt in the perpetual gloom.  The men and women who lived in that forest began to be pale from lack of sunlight, and their faces were set with fear.  The river noticed none of this.  Nothing could grow across his wide, rocky bed.  The sun shone down on him as much as it ever had.

At the same time, the forest on the other bank was thriving.  Men and women scattered seeds, and fruit trees sprang up among the smooth trunks of the older trees.  The new trees filled in the forest but did not crowd it, and their fruit attracted birds that sang among the branches.  The birds built their nests in the strong, graceful trees, and the men and women of the forest grew strong with so many sources of food and their faces wore contented smiles.  The river noticed none of this.  He could not hear the singing of birds over his own gurgling song, and, anyway, what difference could twittering birds possibly make to a mighty river?

Inevitably the time came that the men and women in the dark, fearful forest saw the men and women in the young, fruitful forest and wished that they could cross the river.  They first tried swimming, but the river’s strong current carried them away before they could cross its vast width.  Then they tried to make a path across by hurling stones into the water.  The stones, too were swept away.  Desperate, the men and women thought to empty the river.  They exhausted themselves with bowls and buckets, scooping out water and hurling it up under the trees.  The river never seemed any less, and all that water only made the vines grow more quickly and the forest turn even darker.  The men and women cursed the river and blamed it for all their misery.  The river scarcely noticed.  He had tumbled many rocks into the sea in his day and many men and animals had taken water from him.  Water always came back in the end.

But the river knew nothing of the determination of men.  The men and women hated the river now and were desperate to conquer it.  So they began gathering branches.  They discovered that the vines which made their lives miserable were very strong, strong enough to hold together even under great strain.  They tied together branches with vines and discovered a way to make boats.  Many boats failed  and many men and women failed in their attempts to guide them on the river’s rough waters, but they did not give up.  Eventually they learned.  Eventually they made it to the other side.  The river didn’t mind.  The men and women may have felt that they were taming him, but he rolled on, scarcely feeling their scurrying back and forth across his surface.

Now that the men and women could cross, it was not long before bridges were built.  Seeds of fruit trees were carried across the dark old forest and planted.  Vines were cut back to let them grow.  Seeds of vines made their way across the bridges as well.  The young, strong forest had to fight against the quick growing tendrils.  Men and women on both sides worked hard.  The forests changed.  They grew more alike.  The battle between the beauty of the wild and the cultivated beauty of men was being waged on both sides.  The river noticed the changes.  He admired the beauty of the struggle but only in passing.  Struggle was something he didn’t understand.  The sun shone, the storms came, he gathered in both the light and rains and the winds and rolled on.

As time went on, the men and women grew more advanced.  They built factories to burn the vines and mills to process all the new food they could grow.  The factories dumped filth into the river.  He did not like these changes, but he found he could sweep along, even if there were less fish than before and an unpleasant smell.  After a time the men and women got sick from drinking this new unpleasant water, and they found a way to change their factories, to make them cleaner.  The river was glad to be clean again, but he only thought about it in passing as he rushed toward the ocean.  The men and women built large wheels and put them into the river to use his strength to run new machines and make light in the darkness.  They blessed the river and bragged that they had made his strength their own.  The river thought no more of their blessings than he had of their curses.  He had pushed through obstacles much larger than their wheels and to him it was only a pause on his constant journey.

So the men and women went on growing.  They cut down the forests and replanted them.  They built monuments to their achievements.  They looked up at the stars and named them all.  They called the stars a new challenge and, forgetting about the river, they constructed ships to visit the stars.  And the river tumbled along between two forests, never noticing that no more men and women walked beneath the branches.

The evening was cool and lovely, a slight breeze rustled the trees, making the leaves ripple and carrying that wonderful woodsy scent to where Angela stood in the doorway enjoying the sunset.

“Shut the door!  You’re letting the air conditioning out!” snapped Aunt Lou from the family room where the television was yammering.

Angela stepped out quickly, closing the door behind her.  Aunt Lou’s voice followed her.  “Don’t you stay out there in the dark!  Last night you came in covered in mosquito bites!”  Angela walked faster.

It was only a few steps through the neatly clipped yard to where the forest waited.  It crowded up against the wire fence, vines growing up the posts, branches leaning over and dropping leaves onto the lawn.  Angela slipped out the gate and took a deep breath.  Under the trees it was already night, cool and mysterious.  Angela made her way to her favorite spot, enjoying the way the old leaves crunched underfoot.  When she reached the decaying log, she sat in the hollow that was just the right size and leaned against the crooked branch that seemed made for her back.  Here she was completely alone but never as lonely as she was inside that house crowded with people.  The trees made companionable noises, creaking and rustling and scratching.

Angela let herself relax, trying to forget another long day of frantic vacation activity.   It had been a long string of guided tours and souvenir shops, of scuttling from air conditioned bus to stale overcrowded restaurant.  Angela wasn’t sure why Uncle John and Aunt Lou had chosen such a remote vacation spot if they never wanted to be outdoors.  Their idea of spending time in nature had been taking all the children down to the city pool, to lounge in chairs set up on fenced in concrete while the children splashed in overchlorinated water.

The crickets started up their nightly song.  Angela sighed.  She had better get back.  Aunt Lou would expect all the kids to be in bed soon.  “I wish I could sleep out here with you,” Angela whispered, running her hand over the smooth bole of a young tree.  She thought of the stifling room she shared with three of her young cousins.  Stella slept with a fan constantly running, and Izzy snored.  The hanging vines brushed Angela’s dark hair as she made her slow way back to the house.  “See you tomorrow night,” she said.

In the darkness, Angela couldn’t see the vines waving at her as the trees above leaned together to whisper.

It was hard to fall asleep in the tightly sealed house.  So it was that Angela was the only one awake, lying in bed wishing she could open a window, when the front door banged open.  Stella snorted and Izzy rolled over, mumbling, but no one seemed to have woken up.  Angela crept down the hall to see what had happened, her white nightgown fluttering around her in an unexpected breeze.  In the living room, moonlight was flooding in through the open door.  Leaves had blown in and were now littering the floor.  No one was around.  Angela thought what a strong wind it must have been to have blown open the door.  She slipped across, thinking to shut the door and lock it this time.  If Aunt Lou found out she hadn’t locked it when she came in, Angela would have to endure an hour’s lecture.  She sighed.  She was going to have to clean up all these leaves, too.  For a moment, Angela stood in the doorway enjoying the air.  Then she reached for the door.  Her hand found leaves instead.

Angela looked closer.  The door was wrapped in vines.  For a second, she just stared at the leaves.  Then a tendril of ivy swayed forward and caressed her cheek.

————————————————

When local authorities answered the 911 call, they had to cut their way through a thick stand of trees only to find a house that looked as if it had been abandoned years before.  The windows were all broken.  Flowering plants grew in the halls.  Vines tangled through the cabinets.  Dried leaves littered everything.  If it weren’t for the muffled sounds coming from the bedrooms, the emergency workers wouldn’t have known anyone was still there.  A family of mice skittered away as the workers moved down the hall.  On the beds, they found the family, wrapped up tight in vines thick as ropes.  They were all unharmed, though terrified.  The oldest girl still gripped the cell phone she had used to make the call, though it, too was now hidden by the leaves.

The family were all cut free and carried from the house.  They were already in the ambulances when the mother called out, “Wait!  Angela!  Where is Angela?”

“Who is Angela, ma’am?”

“My niece.  Her parents are gone.  It was our turn to have her this summer.  She was in the room with the other girls.”

But no one had seen Angela.  And even a thorough search of the house and woods turned up no sign.  The police eventually concluded that she had run away before the unexplainable “event”.

The “event” was something no one wanted to talk about.  Certainly no one ever visited the quickly rotting house now surrounded by forest.  But from time to time, adventurous kids came close, and sometimes they came home with stories of a ghost who lived among the vines and branches.  A ghost with a white dress and long dark hair.