Eric--Part Seven

Splog # 39

Seven

   Eric stood in front of the limb, looking at the orange and the apple, and finished up his pear. If there was someone running around here and playing tricks on him, he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of getting upset about it. He took the core of the pear and threw it as hard as he could toward the rear of the tree. Then he picked up the apple and started to head back to where the paths met. He had only gone a step or two when he decided it would be a good idea to take the orange too, as he didn't know when he would find anything else to eat. He turned back to the limb but there was nothing on it. And in the distance he could see a shadow moving through the trees that gave off a flash of white every time it caught the light in a certain way.

   Impulsively, he ducked under the limb and headed in the same direction as whatever was moving there in front of him. He opened his mouth a couple of times to call out to whoever was there. But, each time he did, the surrounding forest seemed to discourage his projecting his voice into it. He was making enough of a disturbance with his awkward passage through the woods. He somehow felt it would be inappropriate to add any further violation to the forest's tranquility. He was surrounded by silence. Except for himself, there were no sounds that he could hear. Whatever he was following had resolved itself into a figure of white but it was moving too erratically for him to impose any further definition onto what he was seeing. As far as he could tell, it seemed to be moving fairly soundlessly.

   After a little, he felt himself slowing, though he had never been running very quickly, hampered as he was by his heavy knapsack. But whatever he was following didn't press ahead and lose him. He noticed that it seemed to be keeping pace with him. To find out whether this was true, he stopped moving. When he did, the white figure leaped or flew or jumped straight up until he lost sight of it.