Short Story Collection #1

A Cliff-Edge Meeting (W.A. Ed.) - Part 1

A Cliff-Edge Meeting - Wattpad Edition

a three-part short story by Tom Fraust

~o~

for you girls who read "The E-Mail" and got your hearts broken.

Especially Kate because I broke her heart twice.

Sorry for breaking your heart, dear, twice, under a single day, under a single hour.

~o~

Part One: DREAM

Before the girl came, there was only a boy and a cliff.

This was a boy who loved to go to a cliff far away from his hometown and far away from his life. He went there after school and spent his weekends just there on the cliff, alone. He never had a friend nor did he wanted to have one. All he wanted was the feeling of freedom that greeted him whenever he went to the cliff.

The cliff overlooked the ocean, miles of the watery expanse visible from three sides. The tides broke with a roar from below as it flew, landing with a series of pounds and cracks--a sound so satisfying that it was basically music to one's ears. The grotto was blanketed with a thin spray of grass. Flowers of different shades grew along the sides and various insects scuttled among the blades of grass. This was not the pinnacle of the cliff, however. The main attraction of the cliff was a single solitary tree, standing tall and courageous on the cliff. This was where the boy spent his time.

He sometimes spent nights on the hill, making his widow mother sick of worrying. Sometimes he skipped school and just went to his hill, leading him to being punished by the headmaster. But he did not care. He just wanted to visit the hill.

He asked the tree, "Why can I not see any beauty in people? Why can I not feel anything from my friends? They all look so bland and chained. I am afraid I'll end up like them. I am afraid I'll turn into a man like the old whiskey men in the bar."

Of course, the tree did not respond at his questions. It was just that: a tree. But the boy kept on talking to it like it can understand; he felt that the tree was his true friend. When he blurted out his problems at school, the tree just listened. He liked that. His friends always ignored what he said and just talked about themselves.

The afternoon scenery before sundown always felt like an eternity; then a fleeting moment lost in the next. He thought he could just live on like that: witnessing the sun gracefully dive every day. But he was reminded of his mortality when one day he discovered a young sparrow injured on one of the big roots of the tree.

"What happened?" He asked the tree after carelessly flinging his school bag aside. The tree did not reply, as usual, and he approached the fallen bird cautiously. He tenderly nudged the little sparrow and waited, but it did not move. He gently laid a finger on the bird's small breast and was surprised to find a heartbeat--slow and weak, but a heartbeat, nonetheless. Once he removed his finger, knowing that the bird is alive, he heard another bird chirping from the upper branches of the tree that sounded more of a cry for help than a song. He looked up just in time to see a golden tabby cat hanging from one of the higher smaller branches of the tree, readying to pounce at another baby sparrow in a nest.

"Shoo!" he exclaimed, picking up a stick. "Get away from that bird, beast!" the boy climbed one of the footholds of the tree and he started waving around the stick. The cat seemed to take his ward-offs lightly as it ignored him and continued to crawl towards the flightless baby sparrow who started crying out a little more frantically from its nest.