just follow the cat

Countdown 1: Starling and the Moon of Popping Trees

today, 5:33PM, December22nd

a home south of Cheyenne, Wyoming

The Moon of Popping Trees is full

"Is that all there is?"

Donna Mae Prindle nodded. "Yes, dear. You asked me to count out exactly 28 pills, so that's what I gave you. Is that still what you want?"

Starling nodded and then arranged the 28 pills in different shapes on his abdomen. First, he made them into a square, then a triangle, and finally a hexagon. Seeing the six-sided shape, he turned to his mother and said, "The hexagon shouldn't look right but it does."

He smiled and pointed at the shape. "It's just that 6 doesn't divide evenly into 28. But it still looks good, don't you think?"

"If you say so, dear. I think it looks perfect."

The 28 pills had no real color. Or maybe you could call them gray but nothing more vibrant than that. They were flat little circular discs that reminded Starling of poorly designed flying saucers that were never going to be aerodynamic enough to get off the ground. Before swallowing the pills, he checked to see that there was a full glass of water on the table beside the bed. Through the glass, he watched his mother pick up the quilt she was working on and begin to sew together another square. The curve of the glass and the water inside it distorted the pattern so much that it no longer looked like Robbing Peter to Pay Paul. In this misshapen world, Paul was now robbing Peter or maybe some unknown third party had slipped into the pattern and was stealing from both of them.

Starling closed his eyes and began swallowing the pills one by one. He imagined the six-sided shape on his abdomen and found each pill by memory. Before he had swallowed half of them, he thought, "It's just a flip of a coin. That's all it is."

Then aloud, he said, "Tell me all the things I never knew, Ma".

Donna Mae Prindle sighed. "You know there's no time for that, dear."

As she watched him swallow another pill, she said. "But I can tell you about the day I met your father. How would you like that?" She paused for a second and added, "It's the story of you."

Then, without waiting for an answer she started talking. "Well, as you know, I met your father twice. Once that counted and once that didn't. Your father only met me once and he never forgot that day for as long as he lived. I don't remember the exact date when he first met me, but that's probably because I didn't remember meeting him on that day. If your father was still alive, I'm sure he could tell you the date, but that detail mattered more to him than it did to me. But I do recall that it was near the end of January and it was just about as cold as it is today. The people in my area of Missouri call that time of year the Moon of the Frost and it was as frosty a day as I can ever recall. My Thomas and I were driving through the small town of Leasburg, Missouri. That's where your father was born. Even today, Leasburg is barely a town. Back then, it had some scattered houses and one main street. It was a poor town full of poor people and I wondered if it had ever really recovered from the Depression. As we drove through Leasburg, Thomas and I were talking about all the dreams we knew we'd share and I was teasing him about being the eighth child of an eighth child of an eighth child. I asked him if that meant we were certain to have eight children. He promised that we would and I'm not sure I was ever happier in my life than when I heard him map out our future together. He said we'd grow old holding hands. Those were his words and they still sound beautiful to me."

She paused for a moment to search her mind for more of the story. It was only when she latched onto another thread that she continued. "Some people," she said, "might think my story is complicated, but to me it was always simple. When we pulled into Leasburg, we saw a crowd of people leaning over a well. Thomas stopped and we joined the crowd to see what was happening."