Out on the back patio, the clouded sky above him, some mixture of blacks, grays, blues and even some pink—incandescent or fluorescent late night lights from the next town over, reflecting. Maybe it was a new moon, he really didn’t know. The glow from town banded out and up from over the hills that sat hunched with poor posture over the valley he was in, and at the bottom of which sat a now still lake. But what dark there was had awoken the forest to the business of travel. Down through the dark woods, at the shore, he can hear the cautious steps of some large animal, maybe a dog, maybe a deer. Judging from the gradual and staccato sloshing of the water, he deems it a stag somewhere in his own congruently dark mind. And then, too, there are more little things, brushing and crunching leaves all about—foxes, possum, skunks, who knew? All this was percussion for the melody of a single and incredibly persistent whippoorwill. This nocturnal nuthatch would call for hours, late into the night, and every night from a slightly different position. Beneath that, there are the cicada and the tree frogs. Long arcs of buzzing and calling lull Travis into meditation.

He cracks his neck, bends it around a few times and then lets his head fall completely backwards. The din causes him to push his heels lightly so that the wrought-iron bench upon which he sits will sway in some rhythm likely lent to his subconscious by the forest around him. And it was then, in that moment, that he thought of her. It was as though she were sitting next to him. He thought about writing her a letter—yes, a letter that could be complete and spell out all his thoughts and carry sincerity. Something to explain all the years that had gone by, all the long years in which they had both changed.

BANG!

The cedar deck above him echoes out down to the lake and out around the hills. He sits up straight, his heart bouncing, but to do what? To confront what? Was he under attack? Had one of these wild night-players come up close? Minutes pass and he slowly sits back in his seat. There are no follow-up sounds. No growls, no scuffling, no howls or hoots. There was just the bang and then nothing.

And he thinks that it is as if the Universe has asked him to pay attention.

And then, underneath the meanderings down by the shoreline, underneath the now tired whippoorwill, underneath the chirps and calls, he can hear more of these occasional and punctuated slaps or crashes. A nut? It was June. There were babies abounding. But he wondered, when do trees give birth? Is there a season? There must be—on Earth there is a season for everything. And so he decides that he had been witness to the late night birth of a tree that would now remain silent for fifty years until it dropped its own heavy seed on a deck that still remained or that had been gone for a long time.

Read the whole thread: Incunabula

Characters and Places: acorns, quiet, Tavis Fleeting, trees