Punking Durple
My breath slammed out of me. “UGHFF!”
And then I was not only in Tersen’s arms, but we were down- horizontal- like it was intentional. His back was flush with a layer of bark and dirt in the planter bed, leaves and sunlight shifting over our heads, as his arms held me tight. One hand cupping the back of my head, down my neck, as though I was precious. One hand under my backpack, on my waist. A crow cawing out expletives for being shaken from it’s place in the billowing birch tree.
“Feck...” I gasped in a breath near his ear and slumped my head down onto his muscular, sun-soaked shoulder.
Phew. So much phew.
I breathed and let my heart come to grips with feeling secure and safe within arms I previously thought were meant to capture. Crush. Contain.
Whoa.
Pren had natural protective skills. Serious potential. That quality... To not only notice my possible collision but to decide in an instance of breath and blink that he would funnel all of my racing energy into his body and save me from myself. That he would choose to protect... me.
“Are you okay, Pren?” I asked while still stuck to him. Still safe in his embrace.
“Brilliant... Ru. Just...” he breathed in a tight, searching breath, “a mite... winded. But... brilliant.” He squeezed my waist, removing his hand from my head, patting my back through layers of backpack and books and paper, layers of dead trees, “I’m brilliant.” And then I felt a few strands of my hair being gently lifted off his face and out where he could look at them beneath the lilting light of birch and crabapple branches. “Just brilliant.”
“What are ye doing?"
"Uhhh...what?" I looked up and around, blinking back to my present, wondering over my father's incredulous expression. "This?" I asked, thinking his question rather silly.
"Are you intentionally trying to drown that material?"
"Yes?"
"Either ye are or ye aren't."
"I are." I shook my head and then turned back to plunge more fabric into the chilly depths. "I mean- I am. To keep me cool while I hang out at the creek. I would use creek water but you don't like when I jump in down there, anymore, so here I am at the pool. Punking durple."
"Pardon? Have ye hit yer head again?" Da's confusion fed his habit to land his hands on his hips, making angles out of his tanned, yet still- freckled arms.
"No. What did I-? Oh. I meant my hammock. Dunking. Purple."
"Aye. Makes sense then. Have at it."
"I will. If you don't see me in an hour-" I gestured toward the drop off, where our shallow back yard became a steep hillside of growing things. A veritable forest made up of eucalyptus trees and wild grasses, "then I'm still down at my creek."
"Half an hour."
"Okay. A half hour. Then a proof of life text. Er-walkie talkie check in."
"Deal. In thirty."
"Okay." I quickly agreed, ready to distance myself from all other humans, even one I loved.
Da looked at his screen and began fidgeting with an app. “Time begins... now."
"FLIP Da! Give me time to get down the steps."
"Go!" He urged loudly, such a wild man for being a mid-life crisis farmer. Quitting his nerdy job in Livermore to basically go nuts.
Grow nuts.
Tree nuts. Walnuts, specifically.
"Well." I replied, bothered but anxious to descend into my eucalyptus forest, to lose myself in nature. And then I hustled, yanking my hammock up from the sunken depths of icy liquid- thanks to a hose from the house infusing more to keep it refreshing instead of a burn hazard. I stuffed it into my now very wet arms, "Cooold!" I jumped, startled and relieved in the same moment. Exiting the gate of metal pool fencing, I fled to the deck steps and hurried my typical leisurely descent- into madness or a hammock. Who really knew from hour to hour what the creek would be like?
Especially that one time.
My creek. My hideaway from humans and phones, media, boys and modern things. Accoutrements, or so I read in a book once. Sounded so fancy. I had a stash of books, water and snacks down beside my hammock trees. Safe and secure in their little library tree home, free of bugs and shielded from inclement weather.
Like rain. Like that ever happened.
Other than that one time.
As I hit the last flight of steps downward, flecks of cool water assaulted me. I paused, wasting precious seconds as I placed my hand palm up, looking to the sky for rain. But it wasn't rain. Da had turned on the sprinklers in the foliage that covered what would be an eroded hillside without it. It was both fire protection and nuisance. He was doing it on purpose, like a reminder with every drop- time was indeed ticking down.
I kept moving and cringed at the cold drops that hit my neck, bare from pulling my hair up into anything that would keep the heat from overcoming me. It was usually cooler down at my creek but it was a record breaker up top. In the sky. High temps and no sign of it stopping anytime this week. Placing my sandaled feet onto the shaded stone path of slate nestled within smooth river rock, I reveled for a moment in the verdant view across the creek. The other side. The green that stayed green due to proximity to hydration. The side I ended up on when water tossed my world into tumult. When I found really old stuff, by not succumbing to the slick space for splashing spills.
Basically not drowning.
I continued along my rock path, which was placed to look stumbled upon rather than designed, and reached my hammock spot, where I lingered, staring at the creek rushing left without a sign of ever stopping...or slowing. Or caring what it carried along with it. I felt my entire body tense and then relax. I was safe. I knew I was.
With my black carabiners in hand, clanking together, I stepped to the tree to my right and attached to my anchor point and then untwisting the mass of wet fabric, I attached the other carabiner into place, leaving the hammock looking like a limp, drowned thing. But wouldn't it feel nice? I braced my sitting spot, to keep from going over backwards, deciding to face the left side of the creek instead of upstream. Once I was perfectly settled, I placed my right arm over my head, ready to breathe deeply and daydream and be lulled for exactly twenty five minutes. Til check in.
He had been super vigilant about knowing my whereabouts since my splash down. No more chunks of time to myself unless I was up top. In the sky. But down at the creek- my freedom was suddenly, ridiculously limited.
All because I nearly died.
Don't a lot of people nearly die every day?
Or actually die?
But Da didn't see the logic in my argument. Thus I had to stay close either in body or audio frequency.
"Yikes!" I gasped, when a rain of freezing drops pelted me within my hammock, shocking my system with opposite sensations. My hammock was already drying, partly due to my clothing absorbing moisture and from the heat of the afternoon, but the sprinklers were shifting my way on a random breeze. They weren't placed to reach my spot at the water's edge. Never had in fact. Hence the startle. Unless my Da had super powers over sprinkler systems... No. Couldn't be.
I relaxed as droplets ran down my ankles, and my bare feet.
Time passed and soon I was up on my feet, grabbing my walkie-talkie from the water safe box and clicking it on to send a shout out to my Da, earning me another half hour of creekside bliss. I turned toward the house up top and spoke my greeting, "Hello. I am alive. Still. Do not send help." And then I remembered to say the magic word. "Over."
"Verra funny, Jerusha. Over."
"Whoa Da- the whole Jerusha? Do I really deserve that? Over."
"Ye have another half hour. Same rules apply. Over."
"Thank you for your gracious time constraints. Over and out."
That done, I looked up and saw him walk away from the deck railing, back toward our house, and got a face full of breeze carried sprinkler spit. A fat drop right into my mouth. I sputtered, feeling more rapid-fire drops target my clavicles and arms. Like a water gun fight that I just lost.
"WELL!" I hollered, directing my disdain skyward. Whether he heard me or not... well, I wasn't going to rise to the surface to make a point. I had the creek and the rush of water flowing toward town to keep me company. And that was all I wanted.
A world apart, but steps close to modern.
