Shall we go back to the glasshouse? Shall we? Why not? Its been ages. Its been years. Surely not years, surely its only been months. I wonder if we’ll find anything? Like that bra. You’ll never find anything as good as that. Wow that was a good day. So was that. Do you think that wall is still there? Lets go. Lets go. Just once. Come on. Lets go. Lets go this way. Do remember when we had to walk all the way round there because we didn’t want my Mum and Dad to see us? And we used to come through here so fast like make-believe planes. I remember. Do you remember the deer? That awful deer, thrashing around. Poor thing. I can’t believe we never got hurt or anything, can you?
We went back to the same sunlight that the nuns had left. And we did it all again. Broken laughter cut the air and shards of glass were thrown carefully through the trees. There were half-smiles when they smashed. Then someone suggested that we climb the old trees. We started to climb ironically, each of us wrapped around a trunk like ivy, inching further towards the sun. We were not talking but the silent conversation of competition was punctuated by the odd grunt of exertion, or the sharp crack as a misplaced foot broke off a misread branch. We got higher and higher. We held on tight, the moss against our cheeks and climbed and climbed, branch after branch. At first, we were together, but the gaps between us were expanding. One by one, they stopped. I left them dangling and shouting on the trunks below. I left the glasshouse and my friends far behind me. I never found if the last wall ever fell under our weight. If it did, I was not there to hear it. I kept climbing higher. I climbed above the wings of the fighter planes that were shooting through the treetops. Above the radio signals and the giggling and the shouts of my friends; above the houses and the streets; above the cities far away; above the broken mirrors; above the roots and the foundations. I nearly broke through the canopy that washed over my head like a wave. I climbed up towards the light, with my feet on branches that were getting thinner. The light grew brighter. I climbed higher.
Until, quietly, I fell.
I fell through the canopy of leaves, down through the branches. Down to the radios and the roots and my friends; and my fall and I were broken by a bed of glass.
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