The Perfect Friendship

Totally ripped this plot from a Laotian myth

His legs are always crossed, left fused over right at the knee. His right kneecap, however, pushes and locks on top of the left like a slab of the Earth’s crust. He started growing like this in the womb. His skin is nearly unblemished. Young and peach, only a thin grey scar outlines where right and left meet. Bending shoots violent pains as his kneecaps grind against each other.

    He is seven and his favorite thing to do is to look at trees. He likes to explain that no tree has a perfectly straight trunk, each twists, splits or bulges. He says that the bark is a face riddled with wrinkles and that knots are the tree’s eyes. The most fascinating trees home animals in nests and burrows. He daydreams of climbing in the branches and finding a squirrel’s nest in a hole in the trunk, perhaps filled with acorns from the Fall.

He thinks about how much he wants to run and climb. He thinks about how weak his muscles are until he’s on the verge of tears. When his mother comes home from town she finds him crying. She hugs him and says, “My darling son, remember to be grateful for your sight. Imagine being blind like the boy next door. He can never see the wondrous things that you love so dearly.”

The more the boy thinks about this the sadder he feels. Each day while his mother is in town he practices walking so he can be strong enough to visit his friend.

The boy next door doesn’t care what the world looks like. As long as he can run he is happy. He just wishes that when he takes off sprinting he could know what’s in front of him. Unless he follows memorized routes he often trips or crashes into people. He grows strong and tall. He exercises everyday, running in circles through his home.

One day while his mother is in town, he hears knocking at the door. “Who is it?” calls the blind boy.

“Me,” calls the lame boy on the other side of the door.

The blind boy traces his fingers along the wall as he guides himself to the door. He pulls it open and notes, “It’s been a long time since you’ve been here.”

“I know,” replies his neighbor. “I wanted to come sooner. It’s hard for me to get where I want to. I get tired from walking only a few steps.”

The blind boy contemplates not knowing what it feels like to stretch your legs after jogging and skipping all day. “If I could see,” he says, “I would walk miles around town and never ever feel tired.”

“I wish I could walk right,” grumbles the lame boy.

“Well, if I carried you,” the blind boy thinks out loud, “you could see for both of us and tell me where to go.”

The boys need no further prompting. They share a smile and the blind boy takes cautious steps towards the lame boy’s voice. With his powerful arms, the boy picks up his friend. He carries him with him with the boy’s legs over his right arm and the boy’s back against his left arm. They took off running as quickly as the other boy could give directions.

The lame boy marvels at the hills and trees that fly past him. He laughs at the other boy’s straight black hair that whips in the wind. After an hour, they finally tire out and sprawl in the tall grass by a brook. The sky shines brilliant turquoise as high wisping clouds float over them..

“I have never run out of breath before,” says the blind boy.

“I have never seen the sky look this blue before,” says the other boy.

“Tell me what the sky looks like.”
    “Let me think.”

The lame boy has no words that could convey to the blind what the sky looks like. He thinks about it for awhile until he’s distracted by the tree nearby. It’s bark is a dramatically bumpy texture, some bumps look as though they stick out from the tree a whole inch. The brown grooves melt into the roots that tangle with the grass. One root twists into a spiral before sinking under the ground. The ground is so uneven that the tree stands at a slant towards the East. There are many thick branches, this tree is good for climbing. Just as the boy starts to study the tree’s fro of young green leaves, he notices a delicate bird’s nest nudged where a branch splits off into two. He hollers, “There’s a bird’s nest in the tree!”

“Oh wow! It might have eggs in it,” the blind boy ponders out loud. “I’m starving.”

“Me too. Why don’t you climb up and get it?”

“Only if you tell me where to climb.”

    Just as naturally as the boys had ran together, the lame boy guides his friend up the tree. until the blind boy sits high on the nest’s branch, dangling bare feet.

“If you follow the branch with your hands about as long as your arms can reach you’ll touch the nest.”

The blind boy did. He reaches inside and shouts, “I found the bird instead!”

Then he holds out his hand and the other boy sees that the bird’s body is long and thin with green scales. It’s not a bird at all! The blind boy has the head of a snake pinched between his fingers and thumb. The lame boy is careful to speak in a calm voice so as not to startle his friend. He commands, “Hold it far away from you.”

Before the blind boy could respond the snake coils its verdant body snugly around his arm and spits venom in the boy’s face. He wipes his face and rubs his eyes. He blinks twice and notices colors and shapes vaguely emerging. With a few more blinks he can see. Startled by the barrage of light processing through his pupils for the first time, he looses balance.

The snake hits the ground first and slithers away in the grass. The once blind boy is lucky to land on his friend and, although painful, the lame boy is lucky too. His friend lands on his legs- applying the right amount of pressure to squeeze his left kneecap out from under the right. The skin tears a part and his legs separate. Blood spreads like inkblots on the boys clothes as they lie tangled and crying.

In the distance they hear their mother’s calling their names.
    “Johnny!”
    “Davie!”

Reviews

[Mathias Winters]

I like the plot, even though you said you took it from somewhere. Regardless, you wrote this well. I didn't think that the two boys would talk the way that they did, but otherwise you have some great writing here.