Far From Away

  Sept. 14,2079 Region 7

There was a monkey in the trees this morning maybe it means something. I was sitting in a chair on what’s left of the deck on the South Side and saw it moving through the branches, thinking at first it  was only morning light drawing a shadow, then wind cutting its stencil from the darkness.

I must tell the boy when he comes today about it so that I can watch the expression on his face to see if it will change. It is difficult to know most times what he is thinking. Even though he cannot speak his hearing remains acute, a passive sense tuned to an ever hopeful rainforest and as each day passes  his body takes it measure from this regions demanding terrain, becoming agile and strong.

 He comes every morning from the village bringing bread, fruit and sometimes roasted chicken, everything but the local wine. I am required to get that myself when I report to Hazik the warden of this area once each week, after I make my way down the left flank of this mountain, to the village carelessly attached to the sloping ground below.

The boy runs all the way here, the path he follows a faint, yet indelible mark following a natural seam rather than a scar made by man in the Earth.

  He moves as part of the forest. Harmony blended with natural grace formed when function bonds with purpose. For all his youth there is still a certain caution that surrounds him. As always he arrives barely breathing, his face without expression.

  He is the color of the Earth in this land. His eyes are large and kept deep in the shadow from the way his face forms around them, holding them in place like a great treasure. The scars on his face and arms, tributaries to cruelty, wind their way around small irregular continents of damaged flesh welded to his body in frescoed reliefs.

 He survived that day, because I saved him, along with a few others from the burning school bus set on fire in anger, people thinking they were trying to hide food on it. The boxes being transported nothing more than cases of diluted, donated school books, ledgers of benign, manipulated history.

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