The Oak Tree

A Short Story

As he lies breathless, Joel watches the wind build; embracing a river of leaves softly floating through the air. Each leaf uniquely crafted with veins once soaked in life. Now lifeless, they drift like snowflakes floating around him, sinking towards an endless ocean beneath the oak tree.

Joel looks up at the countless branches that broke his fall, still wet from the morning dew. His long dirty blonde hair is mangled with twigs and debris, covering most of his freckled skin, pale and cold from the blood pulling at his face. The grayish blue of his shirt and worn nature of his jeans complimented in contrast, by the shifting of his eyes from baby blue to an aquatic green.

Frustrated, he tries to sweep away a leaf lying on his neck, but his hand lays motionless at his side. He strains to complete this simple task once again, but his hand will not budge.

Fear turns to panic as he realizes the paralyzing degree of his fall. He knew that climbing that high was out of his range, a mistake he tearfully regrets at this very moment.

Joel would be six in only three short weeks. Even now, trembling with tears running down his face, he’s filled with the thoughts of presents and cake.

“Or maybe even a piñata,” he whispers.

As the light breaks through the branches, scattering across the surface of his skin, a feeling of warmth and familiarity fills him. Joel feels no pain, only a conflict of emotions; a child’s sense of understanding that struggles against a sense of desperation.

Closing his eyes, Joel recalls his venture out of bed that morning. Before anyone else was awake, he threw on the same jeans and t-shirt that he had worn the last few days, covered in food stains and dirt. Once dressed, he ran out the front door, budding with excitement.

A heavy rain from early that morning left the grassy yard soaked, though a rare occurrence in this part of San Diego, Joel didn’t seem to notice.

Most of his time centered around the oak tree in his front yard. Being remarkably old, he couldn’t begin to wrap his arms around the mighty trunk of the tree, though playfully he would try.

He tried even harder when climbing up to the lowest branch, just out of his reach. Once he managed to clasp both hands around the branch, he could then lift up his feet and quickly wrap his legs up and around the branch, maneuvering himself up to his knees.

He then began to climb, reaching higher and higher, until the branches became weak and thin. He knew that he could climb up to the birds’ nests and beyond, through the thicket of branches and leaves, so high that he could see for miles around.

Once he was as high up as the thin branches would let him climb, he found his footing, and watched the sun rise high above the edge of the horizon. He then took a deep breath, as he considered his next move towards the ground.

Determined, he began his long, strategic decent down. He only let go of one hand at a time to grab the next branch, then dropping his leg down to check the stability of the one below.

He was losing himself in the motions, descending further still, becoming more and more comfortable. He paused for just a moment, finding himself peering out, straining to see something just out of sight.

Mechanically, he dropped his right leg down to make contact with the next branch, only to find his foot slipping backwards, sliding over the branch and down. His hands pulled free as his bodies weight is clenched by gravities pull, tumbling him backwards. His body grinds through the tree, rounding off the branches, until finally slamming against the very branch that began his ascent.

Joel’s body was wrapped at the stomach, breathless he rolled back and fell to the ground below. He held his eyes closed while the fragments of twigs and branches fall around him, he was left with a heaving sense of panic, choking on every breath.

Bracing for the last of the debris, he reluctantly looked up to the branches above…

Opening his eyes, Joel feels anxious. He couldn’t help but wonder if he would be in trouble after this stunt. If only someone, anyone other than his own mother could find him, fix him somehow, and then everything would be okay.

“Joel…” “JOEL”

The words echoed through the yard followed by his step brother, bolting from the front door, and through the grass to his side.

Alex’s skeleton like figure was a combination of malnutrition and the high metabolism of a growing boy. His shaggy brown hair covered most of his already receding hairline. His face was sucked in around his high cheek bones that receded into deep brown, almost black eyes. Only a few years older than Joel, he stood much taller, by some six inches or more.

His face showed no sense of remorse, just a lipless grin and a cruel snicker in amusement, as he began poking fun at Joel’s tears. All while laughing, grabbing at the leaves flailing around him, than throwing them at Joel’s face.

“What’s wrong jerk face?” He scoffed.

“Stop crying you big baby.” Alex yelled as he started kicking at Joel’s legs.

Joel found himself laughing back at Alex, or maybe it was with him, even he couldn’t tell.

After being kicked around, ridiculed and unable to defend himself, Joel’s pride was bleeding through, he would do anything, even unconscious, to make his helplessness go unnoticed.

Joel than begins to pull at every ounce of his strength, expelling every inch of himself to take more than just breaths. Alex becomes a blur as tears fill his eyes, tunneling into darkness.

Frightened awake, Joel’s eyes flash open as he finds himself lying on his back, under a warm quilt, tightly wrapped around him. With pillows stacked high beneath him, and his favorite stuffed leopard laying under his arm, folded up over his chest.

He no longer felt anxious or scared, just comforted in his cocoon like state, watching the planets and stars, affixed to the ceiling, glowing brightly overhead.

He began to wonder if it had all been a dream. A sense of ease comes over him as he lifts up his arm and sweeps his hair back out of his eyes. Comforted, he recalls the object that had disrupted his descent.