The Keep Catcher

High in the peaks of Montrichard, France, a young man ran. Nearly invisible modicums of ice pricked his rosy cheeks as he dashed through the below freezing air. The indecipherable dialogue of some nearby twig- acquainted cardinals whirred through the man’s frost- bitten fingers, clenched into tight fists, and went unheard past his chilled ears. The determined look on the young man’s face told stories that no lips could yield, no matter how hard they struggled.

To where this man was running, when, or where he had left from, were unbeknownst to the mere onlooker. All that could be deduced was that undoubtedly, somehow, somewhere, some one was chasing him. And the tears that began to redden his already bloodshot eyes seemed to proclaim that his hunter, whoever it may be, was not of the kind to give up.  

The decently- clad young man in his unbuttoned tweed jacket and stainless slacks dashed across the dead and ice- crisped field of a vacant and forgotten little school- house. He ran right behind it, and into a new section of forest, entirely ignoring the beaten- in path. He ran right behind it, without even looking back.

*          *          *

“You know what I would say if it were up to me, Childes,” she said. Childes smiled down at his desk. “Girls should be able to wear trousers just as much as boys should,” she stated, proudly adjusting her suspenders. Her jet black hair fell just below her shoulders and, by the unrelenting claws of boredom, had been twisted into gentle curls that currently fell around her face. She looked to Childes over her shoulder, splintering the iridescent mirage of the back of her head, only to reformulate into a new masterpiece. A greater work of art, Childes thought, than any piece of Michelangelo, any portrait of Picasso, or any picture of da Vinci…her face. With every flowing stroke of her soft crimson lips, the deepest of baritones could sing a note higher. With every detail punctiliously added to her harlequin eyes, the most pathetic of blind men could take a step forward without the crutch of a guiding hand. And with every touch of her queenly and perceptive fingers, the flame of a candle in a cave hiding the most arcane and abstruse secret glowed a little brighter.

“Are you going to move that treacherously slow behind of yours? Or do I need to mail you an invitation, Childes?” she chided. The boy slung his pack over his shoulder and followed her out the door along with the marching feet of twenty- three other school children.

Childes.  He chuckled at the nickname. Well, actually it wasn’t precisely a nickname, but his surname. Only she addressed him by it. It all began shortly after their unspoken agreement of friendship. She proposed that they call each other by their last names, for the sole reason that she positively despised her first name. Roitelet. He loved it. It meant wren, which surprisingly, she loved with a passion, as she did all animals. “Why I think that’s the most beautiful name in all the world,” Childes said when he learned it. She stuck out her tongue. “Yuck, too girly!”  So Childes obliged. After all, who was he, a scrawny outcast of a boy, to turn down so genuine of a person? But then again, they were both outcasts in a way. But in Childes’ mind, Simon, as she had her name, was one of those very rare types of people who only come along once in your life with something rather grand to offer. And if you don’t take up that offer, it’s gone forever and you’ll never get it back- and Childes thought himself honoured to be shown such an opportunity. His real name was Avenelle. His gregarious English father had met his divine French mother on the business trip that changed his life forever: he never went home. And hence, came the multi- ethnic Avenelle Childes, prey of his many peers, and humble admirer of Simon.

She began to run. Childes chased her over the green grass that was submissive to their excited feet trampling it into the rich soil beneath it. Simon ran ahead of Childes (who was panting hard and forced to stop occasionally to catch his breath) to where she knew grass would turn to fertile fields of grain, to a wonderful little clearing of trees that would develop canopies of crystal snow in the winter, blossom into translucently pale buds in the spring, and drop fruit into their patient laps in the summer. But now, the trees were crowned. The royalty of the forest, with rubies on their heads and seated upon thrones of shining auburn. This kingdom supplied for everyone. The peasant squirrels and Quaker mice would ask food and shelter of the generous majesties, who turned down no one; not even the bitterest of ground hogs.