05-29-2006, 10:02 PM
This is my favorite short short story of mine. I had some vague ideas about it for a while, and then suddenly, I sat down and this just poured out- in almost exactly the form in which you see it here. I hardly had to edit it at all. But sometimes people find it hard to understand. They don't get what happens at the end.
~ ~ ~
The hot sun glared down on the parched earth of the farm. Benji squinted up at it, sighed, and returned to his weeding. Another day without a single drop of rain. At this rate, the family farm wasn’t going to last much longer.
Benji dug a wilting dandelion out of the ground and tossed it aside. He sighed again, this time out of pity for the green growing things, and touched the brown leaves of a dying carrot plant. Slowly, they grew green and healthy under his careful caress. The little boy smiled a sad smile to himself and went on with his weeding.
The night brought some relief from the heat of the sun, although it was still so hot that Benji felt like he was drowning in his sweat. In the darkness, his pale skin looked blue and his brown hair turned black and silver from the moonlight. He paused by the door of his family’s small log cabin to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, then took off across the scorched earth. He knew a place, a small green oasis of life, where he could go only when no one was watching, and there he practiced the Green Touch. It wasn’t hard, really; He just had to think Green thoughts, plant thoughts, about sun and warm, rain and soft earth, and let the green growing things suck the energy out of him like water. He was trying to learn to Touch as many plants at once as possible; That’s why he had to practice all the time.
He went to the oasis now, with the full moon and silver stars shining overhead. There were bushes and even trees there; a tall maple, some birch saplings, and a beautiful old oak. The oak, a huge, ancient thing, was Benji’s favorite. He sat under it, wrapping himself in the smell of bark, moss, and decaying leaves. The ground here was always soft and damp, because Benji kept it that way with his magic. That’s how the green life liked it. That’s how he liked it.
Benji buried his hands in the soft earth and moss and thought Green thoughts, plant thoughts, earth thoughts. He felt the plants all around him reaching out eagerly and he pushed them away with his mind. Tonight he was going to try to heal his family’s farm. He knew he must succeed soon, or the drought would kill the crops completely and his parents would not be able to pay their taxes and bills. He’d heard them talking about it, late at night when he was supposed to be in bed. If the crops died, they’d have to sell the farm and move to the city, where there wasn’t much green life. Benji hated even thinking about it.
So he pushed those thoughts away. They weren’t Green thoughts anyway, and had no place in his mind right now. Benji imagined himself as a giant rain cloud, spreading out to cover the entire farm, his mind heavy with life-giving water. He concentrated and spread until he could take it no longer, and in his mind the rain cloud burst, raining warm Green energy down onto the earth. He felt the strength draining out of him and sinking into the green life, healing them with the Green Touch. He welcomed the sudden weakness, and sank back against the old oak as the blackness of unconsciousness rushed up at him.
They found him the next day, curled beneath the old oak, cold and lifeless. His parents wept and moaned and lifted his body in their arms, carrying him out of the oasis and onto the now-green farm he had saved. As his mother turned for one last look, a laugh rang out from the trees.
“Benji?” She whispered in shock, her knees giving way as a small, lithe figure slipped from the trees and vanished into the waving fields of wheat.
“Impossible.” His father said softly as they stared after the sprite-like form. “His body- it can’t be him-” But they both knew that laugh.
Benji sat in the branches of his old oak tree and gazed thoughtfully down at the human man and woman who had carried away his old body. They seemed almost familiar, as if he knew them- but that couldn’t be. They weren’t green life, and he was green life through and through.
He shrugged and went back to picking the aphids off his tree’s leaves.
~ ~ ~
The hot sun glared down on the parched earth of the farm. Benji squinted up at it, sighed, and returned to his weeding. Another day without a single drop of rain. At this rate, the family farm wasn’t going to last much longer.
Benji dug a wilting dandelion out of the ground and tossed it aside. He sighed again, this time out of pity for the green growing things, and touched the brown leaves of a dying carrot plant. Slowly, they grew green and healthy under his careful caress. The little boy smiled a sad smile to himself and went on with his weeding.
The night brought some relief from the heat of the sun, although it was still so hot that Benji felt like he was drowning in his sweat. In the darkness, his pale skin looked blue and his brown hair turned black and silver from the moonlight. He paused by the door of his family’s small log cabin to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, then took off across the scorched earth. He knew a place, a small green oasis of life, where he could go only when no one was watching, and there he practiced the Green Touch. It wasn’t hard, really; He just had to think Green thoughts, plant thoughts, about sun and warm, rain and soft earth, and let the green growing things suck the energy out of him like water. He was trying to learn to Touch as many plants at once as possible; That’s why he had to practice all the time.
He went to the oasis now, with the full moon and silver stars shining overhead. There were bushes and even trees there; a tall maple, some birch saplings, and a beautiful old oak. The oak, a huge, ancient thing, was Benji’s favorite. He sat under it, wrapping himself in the smell of bark, moss, and decaying leaves. The ground here was always soft and damp, because Benji kept it that way with his magic. That’s how the green life liked it. That’s how he liked it.
Benji buried his hands in the soft earth and moss and thought Green thoughts, plant thoughts, earth thoughts. He felt the plants all around him reaching out eagerly and he pushed them away with his mind. Tonight he was going to try to heal his family’s farm. He knew he must succeed soon, or the drought would kill the crops completely and his parents would not be able to pay their taxes and bills. He’d heard them talking about it, late at night when he was supposed to be in bed. If the crops died, they’d have to sell the farm and move to the city, where there wasn’t much green life. Benji hated even thinking about it.
So he pushed those thoughts away. They weren’t Green thoughts anyway, and had no place in his mind right now. Benji imagined himself as a giant rain cloud, spreading out to cover the entire farm, his mind heavy with life-giving water. He concentrated and spread until he could take it no longer, and in his mind the rain cloud burst, raining warm Green energy down onto the earth. He felt the strength draining out of him and sinking into the green life, healing them with the Green Touch. He welcomed the sudden weakness, and sank back against the old oak as the blackness of unconsciousness rushed up at him.
They found him the next day, curled beneath the old oak, cold and lifeless. His parents wept and moaned and lifted his body in their arms, carrying him out of the oasis and onto the now-green farm he had saved. As his mother turned for one last look, a laugh rang out from the trees.
“Benji?” She whispered in shock, her knees giving way as a small, lithe figure slipped from the trees and vanished into the waving fields of wheat.
“Impossible.” His father said softly as they stared after the sprite-like form. “His body- it can’t be him-” But they both knew that laugh.
Benji sat in the branches of his old oak tree and gazed thoughtfully down at the human man and woman who had carried away his old body. They seemed almost familiar, as if he knew them- but that couldn’t be. They weren’t green life, and he was green life through and through.
He shrugged and went back to picking the aphids off his tree’s leaves.