Liam Levitz
(4) Stories for lonely shots - No Matter Where
The woods is where I ran. Over this, under that and up I clambered to escape the injury of home.
On a burning summers day, umbrage and anger sent me crashing through the warm, open house, determined as I was to flee from all this injurious order. I grabbed the essentials, crammed them into my kit bag and left the house with a discordant coda of spiteful words and a carefully slammed door. And then there I was. My life at the mercy of the soft summer zephyr that gently stirred the world. Dandelion wishes whirled in the air, birds sang their warbling songs and neighbours waved warm salutations. Against this onslaught of heat and warmth I stood stoic, a figure of determination incarnate. I set my feet to work and I was gone.
Across the pristine lawn, down the crooked driveway and out across the cul-de-sac. I headed with speed up the small hill, turning right at the top, a move that took me behind the fence that marked the end of my parents sightlines. On I marched through brambles and nettles, sticky willow and dock leaf all tramped and cast aside like the petty obstacles they were. I scattered gravel and woodchip as I scurried across the driveway of the old Stately home that overlooked my estate, their estate, and then I was on it. The start of my land, the entrance gate to my gloried fiefdom. An ancient world of dens and spires, swings and castles, heroes and vanquished villians where only I truly knew the routes.
I felt the anticipation of my freedom but I did not stop to savour it, in those days there was always later. Instead I burst a trail through the rhodedendrom that blanketed my kingdoms borders. Branches bent and flexed at my touch then snapped back into shape behind me forming a green wall of invisibility. On through the bluebells I ran, dodging roots and louping stumps with an instinctive gait. My young legs carried me to the clearing and there stood my citadel, the glorious oak whose mighty span choked the undergrowth and challenged the sky.
It was a tree of age and beauty. Its twisted knots of bark and spiralling branches carried the joy of a hundred childhood summers and the ghosts of a thousand tales. Remnants of abandoned treehouses hung from the natural plateau that scattered its towering heights. These fortresses of old could be accessed only by those who knew their way through the map of branches, and those people were few. The warped insignia of Graffitied initials gave lie to the truth that the adults always had been and us children would always be. Lost loves and first blooms thoughtfully and carelessly etched into the sap and grain and, in time, elevated higher than the lives they marked would ever climb.
Here it was I stopped running and started climbing. The cold, dictats of the world I had left could not, would not climb these turrets of emancipation. I was stocked with fruit, water and toys. All the essentials of life were with me and these roots, leaves and branches of this tree could be my world. Higher and higher I climb. 6 foot, 10 foot, 11 foot maybe even 12. Eye level to the gods I clambered and on that day I was as free as those deities.
My breath faltered and my legs demanded rest so I found a perch, my perch. I sat resting on the V of the fork of two of the higher branches. Their thick stems reached out into that immersive blue in dizzying fashion. If your heart was made of weaker will than mine, a look down or a glance out was enough to send you dropping like the leaves in an autumnal storm. Stout was my will and strong was my grip, I was here and here was home.
Time passed, clouds moved and birds sang. Still I sat. Winds blew and winds went, squirrels darted and cats chased. Still I sat. Somewhere in that glazed sky the sounds of a football game rattled and pulsed with the story of the match. Still I sat.
My heart slowed with time. My thoughts, which not so long before had rushed with a near physical force behind my young eyes, began to embrace more practical visions. My rations which on the outset of my escape had seemed like the first glorious meal of a new dawn now comprised of half an apple, a squashed banana and an empty carton of juice. My toys, the prospective troops and citizens of this new order had proved unskilled in the life of a tree dweller. Two ninjas had already spun to a leafy death, their final moments mercifully concealed beneath the lowest canopy of leaves. All I was left was a one armed Thundercat and a mistakenly procured Barbie doll. Adam and Eve they were not.
Dusk began to fall and with it came real discomfort, nagging, growing pain that racked my posterior. My fiefdom rustled with a cooling wind that muttered ill will and suspicion into my ear. I gazed to the south, to where the sun had been when I first made my break. Without the hazy glare I could see the house, their house. Just a small corner of the roof to be fair, but it was undeniably my corner of the roof.
I considered roofs for a second and gazed skywards, we had yet to have our daily quota of rain and the skies were beginning to grumble and burble with threats of untold aqueous deeds. The sight of home and the thought of rain caused my eyes to slowly mimic the clouds. Water crept into the corners, sliding gently along the rim of my eyelids before dropping gently from my face and through the leaves. If this was my home, who was to look after me. These branches would hold firm, but what more would they give?
My thoughts returned to the turmoil that must surely be swelling under that just visible corner of home. Why had nobody come looking? Where was I going to sleep? What was I to eat? How would I find warmth and a television? Were the ninjas dead and WHY had nobody come looking for me? I pondered the complexities as best as my age would allow. Thoughts of a bath and bed flashed before my eyes vying for supremacy with the vivid, vibrant life as a wood dwelling man that lay before me if I was brave enough.
I was not brave enough. As the sun started to dip its orange head below the tree line of the woods, the leaves and branches that had so recently been the avenues and lanes of my gloried estate started to lose their clarity. Opportunities for adventure became the lurking dens where unspeakable but all too imaginable horrors lurked. I imagined commanding these beastly nightmares with my arsenal of, as yet unspecified, weapons. I also imagined gazing up from the forest floor as those unsaid beasts swarmed from their lairs and onto their prey, namely me.
Pre-empting these inevitable physical attacks I set upon a familiar plan, escape. With swift movements I began to scuffle down the tree. Familiar branch after familiar branch passed me by as I headed for blessed, solid, horror free ground. I passed the old treehouses, once the sign of proud warriors past, now the indications of a hasty retreat from these night terrors. The initials of those who had long slipped from childhoods grasp now seemed like the wise signatures of those lucky few who survived the woods. All of that future was at threat, all of that play time and warm beds. My hands passed branch to branch even quicker with each thought.
Then I was down. Dropping the last few feet with my legs already primed to outrun the hordes of teeth, drool and spite that was not long to be kept at bay. Running with haste and fear, I stumbled over tree roots and smashed gracelessly through the rhododendron. Over the driveway I went, feet scuffing on the gravel chips, dust clouds spurting up under my tiny feet. The fence was on me and then past, across the cul-de-sac and onto the driveway where there in front of me was home, safety and an all too vivid defeat.
I slinked into the kitchen. Entering the back door like the good wee boy I was, mud slopped shoes taken off at the door, bag placed on the doormat. There I stood, a bedraggled warrior, silhouetted against the dusk sky. I stared into their world, the radio, the impenetrable newspapers, the bills and the books all cluttered on the tables. Most of all I stared at her. Who would speak first, who would utter words and would they be conciliatory or confrontational? Finally, I spoke.
‘I’m back’.
Brief and aggressive, even in defeat I challenged her authority, that spiteful trait that was to win me no favours in the coming teenage years was already forming in my mind. Then I waited, and waited, and stood some more.
‘I said I’m BACK’
‘That’s nice, dear. Been playing in the woods?’
‘I ran away!’
I said this with more than a slight indignant whine.
‘Did you?’
She said calmly, tossing tonights anaemic salad as she spoke.
‘Well, dinners not going to be ready for a wee while yet so go and get cleaned up’
‘But I ran away! I ran away from home! Didn’t you notice’
My defeated return smarted, the knowledge that my victorious departure had gone entirely unheeded was like a blow to the chest.
‘Gavin, you charged out of the house 2 hours ago to play, all I noticed is that you didn’t tidy your room. Now go and get cleaned up, tidy up some of that mess of yours and I’ll let you know when dinner is ready’
I stood, phased and frozen. My new world, my kingdom, my forceful escape was nothing: a second birth to me, a flash of time to them. The remnants of my rebellion stirred in my gut, my shoulders stretched to their awe spanning width and I spoke.
‘What’s for dinner?’
‘Mince and tatties’
‘Oh’
‘Now go get cleaned up’
‘OK’
With that my defeat was secured. I slunk upstairs, trying my best to be a portrayal of resentment while all the time feeling a comfortable relief. The corridors and doors of this house held enough mystery to me, but they were the mysteries I knew. Why did I have to clean my room? Why did I have to move the couch when I hovered? Why did I need to iron my clothes? All these ideas were unfathomable and unanswerable, yet still so warmly familiar. The warrior could wait for another day, I was hungry and I was home and no kingdoms call would drag me away.
I lay on my bedroom floor with no real intention of cleaning any mess. I just wanted to hear this house, to hear the sound of safety, to hear her voice. Somewhere down below, one of my sisters was getting a row. That controlled, at times hard voice was running logic loops around her childish arguments, and it sounded wonderful. She knew what to say, she knew what to do and she always would.
That I still believe. Even after all the mistakes, even after all those strained years, even after the gaps and distances that emerge from time to time when my world and hers collide. I still believe that she knows what to say and knows what to do. I still believe that in the worst of times I can run home and escape the night terrors once again.
(4) Stories for lonely shots - No Matter Where
The woods is where I ran. Over this, under that and up I clambered to escape the injury of home.
On a burning summers day, umbrage and anger sent me crashing through the warm, open house, determined as I was to flee from all this injurious order. I grabbed the essentials, crammed them into my kit bag and left the house with a discordant coda of spiteful words and a carefully slammed door. And then there I was. My life at the mercy of the soft summer zephyr that gently stirred the world. Dandelion wishes whirled in the air, birds sang their warbling songs and neighbours waved warm salutations. Against this onslaught of heat and warmth I stood stoic, a figure of determination incarnate. I set my feet to work and I was gone.
Across the pristine lawn, down the crooked driveway and out across the cul-de-sac. I headed with speed up the small hill, turning right at the top, a move that took me behind the fence that marked the end of my parents sightlines. On I marched through brambles and nettles, sticky willow and dock leaf all tramped and cast aside like the petty obstacles they were. I scattered gravel and woodchip as I scurried across the driveway of the old Stately home that overlooked my estate, their estate, and then I was on it. The start of my land, the entrance gate to my gloried fiefdom. An ancient world of dens and spires, swings and castles, heroes and vanquished villians where only I truly knew the routes.
I felt the anticipation of my freedom but I did not stop to savour it, in those days there was always later. Instead I burst a trail through the rhodedendrom that blanketed my kingdoms borders. Branches bent and flexed at my touch then snapped back into shape behind me forming a green wall of invisibility. On through the bluebells I ran, dodging roots and louping stumps with an instinctive gait. My young legs carried me to the clearing and there stood my citadel, the glorious oak whose mighty span choked the undergrowth and challenged the sky.
It was a tree of age and beauty. Its twisted knots of bark and spiralling branches carried the joy of a hundred childhood summers and the ghosts of a thousand tales. Remnants of abandoned treehouses hung from the natural plateau that scattered its towering heights. These fortresses of old could be accessed only by those who knew their way through the map of branches, and those people were few. The warped insignia of Graffitied initials gave lie to the truth that the adults always had been and us children would always be. Lost loves and first blooms thoughtfully and carelessly etched into the sap and grain and, in time, elevated higher than the lives they marked would ever climb.
Here it was I stopped running and started climbing. The cold, dictats of the world I had left could not, would not climb these turrets of emancipation. I was stocked with fruit, water and toys. All the essentials of life were with me and these roots, leaves and branches of this tree could be my world. Higher and higher I climb. 6 foot, 10 foot, 11 foot maybe even 12. Eye level to the gods I clambered and on that day I was as free as those deities.
My breath faltered and my legs demanded rest so I found a perch, my perch. I sat resting on the V of the fork of two of the higher branches. Their thick stems reached out into that immersive blue in dizzying fashion. If your heart was made of weaker will than mine, a look down or a glance out was enough to send you dropping like the leaves in an autumnal storm. Stout was my will and strong was my grip, I was here and here was home.
Time passed, clouds moved and birds sang. Still I sat. Winds blew and winds went, squirrels darted and cats chased. Still I sat. Somewhere in that glazed sky the sounds of a football game rattled and pulsed with the story of the match. Still I sat.
My heart slowed with time. My thoughts, which not so long before had rushed with a near physical force behind my young eyes, began to embrace more practical visions. My rations which on the outset of my escape had seemed like the first glorious meal of a new dawn now comprised of half an apple, a squashed banana and an empty carton of juice. My toys, the prospective troops and citizens of this new order had proved unskilled in the life of a tree dweller. Two ninjas had already spun to a leafy death, their final moments mercifully concealed beneath the lowest canopy of leaves. All I was left was a one armed Thundercat and a mistakenly procured Barbie doll. Adam and Eve they were not.
Dusk began to fall and with it came real discomfort, nagging, growing pain that racked my posterior. My fiefdom rustled with a cooling wind that muttered ill will and suspicion into my ear. I gazed to the south, to where the sun had been when I first made my break. Without the hazy glare I could see the house, their house. Just a small corner of the roof to be fair, but it was undeniably my corner of the roof.
I considered roofs for a second and gazed skywards, we had yet to have our daily quota of rain and the skies were beginning to grumble and burble with threats of untold aqueous deeds. The sight of home and the thought of rain caused my eyes to slowly mimic the clouds. Water crept into the corners, sliding gently along the rim of my eyelids before dropping gently from my face and through the leaves. If this was my home, who was to look after me. These branches would hold firm, but what more would they give?
My thoughts returned to the turmoil that must surely be swelling under that just visible corner of home. Why had nobody come looking? Where was I going to sleep? What was I to eat? How would I find warmth and a television? Were the ninjas dead and WHY had nobody come looking for me? I pondered the complexities as best as my age would allow. Thoughts of a bath and bed flashed before my eyes vying for supremacy with the vivid, vibrant life as a wood dwelling man that lay before me if I was brave enough.
I was not brave enough. As the sun started to dip its orange head below the tree line of the woods, the leaves and branches that had so recently been the avenues and lanes of my gloried estate started to lose their clarity. Opportunities for adventure became the lurking dens where unspeakable but all too imaginable horrors lurked. I imagined commanding these beastly nightmares with my arsenal of, as yet unspecified, weapons. I also imagined gazing up from the forest floor as those unsaid beasts swarmed from their lairs and onto their prey, namely me.
Pre-empting these inevitable physical attacks I set upon a familiar plan, escape. With swift movements I began to scuffle down the tree. Familiar branch after familiar branch passed me by as I headed for blessed, solid, horror free ground. I passed the old treehouses, once the sign of proud warriors past, now the indications of a hasty retreat from these night terrors. The initials of those who had long slipped from childhoods grasp now seemed like the wise signatures of those lucky few who survived the woods. All of that future was at threat, all of that play time and warm beds. My hands passed branch to branch even quicker with each thought.
Then I was down. Dropping the last few feet with my legs already primed to outrun the hordes of teeth, drool and spite that was not long to be kept at bay. Running with haste and fear, I stumbled over tree roots and smashed gracelessly through the rhododendron. Over the driveway I went, feet scuffing on the gravel chips, dust clouds spurting up under my tiny feet. The fence was on me and then past, across the cul-de-sac and onto the driveway where there in front of me was home, safety and an all too vivid defeat.
I slinked into the kitchen. Entering the back door like the good wee boy I was, mud slopped shoes taken off at the door, bag placed on the doormat. There I stood, a bedraggled warrior, silhouetted against the dusk sky. I stared into their world, the radio, the impenetrable newspapers, the bills and the books all cluttered on the tables. Most of all I stared at her. Who would speak first, who would utter words and would they be conciliatory or confrontational? Finally, I spoke.
‘I’m back’.
Brief and aggressive, even in defeat I challenged her authority, that spiteful trait that was to win me no favours in the coming teenage years was already forming in my mind. Then I waited, and waited, and stood some more.
‘I said I’m BACK’
‘That’s nice, dear. Been playing in the woods?’
‘I ran away!’
I said this with more than a slight indignant whine.
‘Did you?’
She said calmly, tossing tonights anaemic salad as she spoke.
‘Well, dinners not going to be ready for a wee while yet so go and get cleaned up’
‘But I ran away! I ran away from home! Didn’t you notice’
My defeated return smarted, the knowledge that my victorious departure had gone entirely unheeded was like a blow to the chest.
‘Gavin, you charged out of the house 2 hours ago to play, all I noticed is that you didn’t tidy your room. Now go and get cleaned up, tidy up some of that mess of yours and I’ll let you know when dinner is ready’
I stood, phased and frozen. My new world, my kingdom, my forceful escape was nothing: a second birth to me, a flash of time to them. The remnants of my rebellion stirred in my gut, my shoulders stretched to their awe spanning width and I spoke.
‘What’s for dinner?’
‘Mince and tatties’
‘Oh’
‘Now go get cleaned up’
‘OK’
With that my defeat was secured. I slunk upstairs, trying my best to be a portrayal of resentment while all the time feeling a comfortable relief. The corridors and doors of this house held enough mystery to me, but they were the mysteries I knew. Why did I have to clean my room? Why did I have to move the couch when I hovered? Why did I need to iron my clothes? All these ideas were unfathomable and unanswerable, yet still so warmly familiar. The warrior could wait for another day, I was hungry and I was home and no kingdoms call would drag me away.
I lay on my bedroom floor with no real intention of cleaning any mess. I just wanted to hear this house, to hear the sound of safety, to hear her voice. Somewhere down below, one of my sisters was getting a row. That controlled, at times hard voice was running logic loops around her childish arguments, and it sounded wonderful. She knew what to say, she knew what to do and she always would.
That I still believe. Even after all the mistakes, even after all those strained years, even after the gaps and distances that emerge from time to time when my world and hers collide. I still believe that she knows what to say and knows what to do. I still believe that in the worst of times I can run home and escape the night terrors once again.