Chapter 6: Fallen
Stories are best told by the people who've lived them. A man who's never laid his heart in the baring palpation of another's palm cannot describe the burning of its breaking in the light; he will choose the wrong words and stumble in his tone even if he grasps the basic agony. And a woman who's never held her child in her arms cannot assess the depths of such devotion; she will paint too pretty a picture, and, even if she cries, there will be a dryness in the tears.
I, myself, can only scratch and scrabble at the surface of the things I see here, and I can never once say, 'I.' I have not lived these people's lives, but I do have the opportunity to give to you of another's viewpoint. I hope you find no fault in Matthew's diction, and, when—if ever—the time comes for you to hear something more profoundly original of mine, you will find the tears quite wet.
The darkness is a blanket to hide under, and the nearness of the leaves echoes back your breath. And there is something much closer in the sound of whispered laughs at night than confident guffaws by day.
"Baal," I whisper just to say his name. He chuckles under his breath back, and I feel the warm brush of skin on my right arm, years of memories providing me with the sight of his arm brushing mine and the imagining of the silver of his eyes far above that but below my own. How long it's been, and still he's a squirt. I laugh quietly at this, feeling, but not seeing, his head turning in response to my sound. My amusement dies quietly-slowly-lightly, as I think, too, of how we're not men yet. The adults never tell us anything important. To them, we're children, even if we know our own minds better than they think they do.
But a nighttime excursion in the woods! They don't have to know about that. In fact, we'll never tell them. "Race?" Baal whispers lowly-challengingly to me, close by my side. I can feel the proximity of him—his breath on my ear, his presence in my nerves.
"Yesss," I hiss back. My heart beats so fast-so alive in my chest, and my stomach flips lightly in exhilaration. There is nothing like running-running away-running forward under your own power. Even for people who hate exercise, running is freeing-exhilarating—a pounding rhythm for your feet. And we're off: ducking under the limbs of low growing branches, jumping over fallen trees, tearing our feet through the underbrush. And no one cares who wins here because it's the chase-the journey, not the destination.
"Ah-" I hear Baal's yell sound and cut off suddenly as he crashes down into the underbrush. I tilt my head back and whoop loudly in the hushed void of the night—a wild creature in these woods and not a sort-of-man. Then my foot catches on something firm but pliable that protests with a grunt, and I'm tripping over Baal, falling into the void, smiling. Of course, it hurts when I hit bottom, but the weightlessness of the fall and the thrashing beating of my heart makes it a joy to plummet-to lose.
"We'll feel that in the morning," I laugh to Baal, and then I whoop again because the quietness of the night—that I can control.
"Can you see that?" asks Baal, intrigue in his voice as he struggles to his knees beside me. My skin prickles with goose bumps at the coolness of a new breeze—a breeze that couldn't penetrate the denseness of the woods. And I can see the shimmering of moonlight off a reflective surface—water? a lake?—that also shows the profile of Baal pointing and half-way to his feet. I get up, too, feeling the dull aching-burning of scraped palms and knees.
"Is it a lake?" I wonder to him, acknowledging the vision.
"I guess. 'S hard to tell. Oh!" Baal's figure redirects his finger to point at a massive, upright blackness imposing on the dim light.
YOU ARE READING
The Devil's Descent
Romance"People can do contradictory things, Michael. A man must not be only shy or only outgoing. In fact, a man is both shy and outgoing. So do as you will and know that good is not untainted by evil; the truth is not the whole truth and nothing but the t...
