by Amy B. Logan
Thomas Green, Jr. opened his eyes. He opened them slowly, his eyelids being sluggish, not sure, as if he had not opened his eyes for a hundred years. His eyelids did not flicker, opening and closing quickly in succession, nor did they snap open like a window shade released from a hand. Instead, they opened slowly, deliberately, in one steady, concentrated motion, both at the same time.
As they opened, the tree came into view. Tom saw the black skeletal branches of the apple tree against a slate gray sky. The sky had few clouds upon it. It was even less than gray. It was really no color at all, like the faded old photograph Tom found once within his Grandpa’s antique desk, trapped beneath the bottom of a dovetailed drawer. It showed Grandpa Lewis, standing straight and tall in his Marine uniform. It was WWI and he had just earned his sharpshooter medal. He was not to be the last of the Greens to serve his country.
Tom waited for the air to come back into his body, for the oxygen to return to his lungs. For now there was a void, only emptiness and pain within his chest. He lay there, unable to breathe, unable to gasp, until at last oxygen returned. Then pain wracked his body as he inhaled, the impact of the fall having knocked the wind out of him. He breathed carefully, testing the capacity, the condition of his lungs, and at last his heart slowed and his breathing returned to normal.
He blinked. Again, slowly, deliberately, allowing his mind to study the branches of the tree against the sepia sky. He didn’t allow himself to move, not a muscle of his body. Then at last, he wiggled each finger of his right hand, one at time, then together, at last forming a fist. Then the left hand. Assessing. Was his body able to move? Was it able to get up, run, hide, fight? His attention turned to his toes, then, his ankles, then his knees. Wrists, elbows, shoulders, all seemed unharmed. And saving it for the very last, his skull. Tom turned his head slowly to the left, and then to the right. Then, not daring to sit up, here, in the open, he rolled over onto his belly and examined his surroundings. He was alone.
He commando crawled to the base of the tree, then sat up, leaning against it. The tree grew at the edge of an open field, a field brown with stubble. Beyond the field were more fields, as far as the eye could see. Behind this tree lay the edge of a forest. That was where Tom needed to be. The forest would lead him to safety. It held the promise of food, water, and shelter. The frozen field before him would give him nothing. He stood up carefully, still evaluating the condition of his body. He checked his pack, noting the apples on the ground around where his body lay prone, just moments ago. He shoved all the apples he could find inside the pack. Then turning his back on the field, he ran towards the wood.
He moved carefully from thicket to thicket. Squat, survey, move forward, repeat. The ground was mostly level with a mix of deciduous trees, maples, ash, birch. The trees were nearly bare at this time of year, being late fall, with the leaves making a thick quiet cushion beneath his boots. He took his compass from his pack to check his bearings. He had to be behind enemy lines. The Dillard line was just beyond that draw. NE. NW. The needle swung a bit, rotating on the dial, then settled to show true North. Tom knew where he dropped out of the tree. It was only a matter of time before he came across a house, even with all this forest the fields were only a stone’s throw away. He had to make it back to safety. To his friends. His family. To Susie.
He had fallen in love with her in the third grade. They were sharing a desk in music class, and sharing a book, a blue book with the American flag on the cover, titled America Sings. He had been singing softly along, following the tune absentmindedly. He was more interested in the pictures in the book. He was particularly interested in the song “I’ve Got a Mule and Her Name is Sal.” The book pictured a boy, about Tom’s age, walking along a canal with a long switch in his hand, in total control of one large mule, evidently named Sal, who was attached to a long narrow barge in the canal with a sturdy rope. Tom was impressed that the boy could control the mule just with the switch, and wondered what that would be like, to spend your days walking up and down the bank of a canal with a mule. Then Susie opened her mouth to sing. It was the voice of an angel. Susie was not aware, just singing along with the class, her blonde curls barely touching the straps of her red plaid jumper. Tom stopped singing at once. At that moment he just wanted to sit there, forever, at the wooden desk with the blue book on it, and listen to Susie sing. That’s all he wanted, in the whole world.
When class ended, he had to say something. “You sing real good,” he told Susie as they got up to leave. “Thanks,” said Susie, smiling back at Tom. “I like to sing, don’t you?”
“Um, Yeah, but I can’t sing anything like you.”
“I think you have a nice voice,” replied Susie. And that was that. Just one more reason Tom had to make it back.
He moved carefully, stealthily, from tree to tree, using each slender trunk as a place to hide as he made his way through the forest. He walked through the woods steadily, checking his compass to verify his location. He paused to take a break, letting his pack slip to the ground. Tom took an apple from the pack, a small wild apple, deep and freckled red, and crouched against the tree to eat. Its flesh was pure white, white as snow, and was still crisp, even now in late fall. Cider. Another reason to make it home. Making the cider, every fall. Tom would help haul the apples in the wooden cart to the milk barn, where the press sat waiting, with its oak slats and ribbed wooden sides. Friends and neighbors gathered to empty the carts into concrete tubs along the long walls of the barn, washing each apple, then peeling and cutting away the cores. Then into the press they went, with the men using the long metal pipe threaded through the top wheel of the press to squeeze the apples, pushing them lower and lower and lower until there was nothing left but a layer of mash at the bottom for the pigs. The muddy juice ran down the oak sluice into gallon jugs and jars below, to be shared and sold and canned for the next year. Then in the depths of winter, when the snow was deep upon the road, a brown jar holding autumn would be brought up from the cellar to enjoy after dinner. And then again in the late spring, on the first hot day, the men could enjoy the cold cider after the first muscle warming day of spring work. Apples, remembered Tom. Apples and Susie. He had to make it home.
And Mother. What would Mother say if he didn’t make it back? He knew she must be worrying now, worrying about exactly where he was and if he was safe. All over the world, Mothers were frying eggs and hanging laundry and making do with the ration books and all the time, in their minds, worrying about their boys that were no longer safe at home. Tom dug a hole beneath the leaves with the heel of his boot and buried the apple core. He’d better get moving. He put the pack back on and continued through the forest. He followed an old game trail, up to a small ridge, and down to cross a small stream. He carefully traversed a criss-cross of logs to get to the other side, and scrambled up a steep bank.
At the top of the bank, Tom ducked low behind a thicket surveying an old house and farmyard. Brown wooden barn fifty yards to the right. A hand pump with bucket stood in the small clearing before the house. He heard no dogs, saw no one. Then suddenly the front door of the farm house swung open. A woman, drying her hands on a gingham apron stood on the porch, looking left and right, her eyes scanning the bushes right where Tom lay in hiding. “Tom!” she yelled out to the forest. “Mission’s over. Lunch is ready!”
Coast was clear. Tom hesitated, then called out, “Javien!” to his mother, practicing his French from his father’s phrase book. “Oui, to whatever you just said,” Tom’s mother answered. “You aren’t running your missions among Dillard’s sheep again are you? Oh, good, you found my snow apples. I’ll make a pie. Now go wash up,” she told him, ruffling his thick brown hair. “Susie’s party is at 4 o’clock.”
They went into the house, the wooden screen door banging closed behind them. Tom paused at the side table in the living room. He stopped to crisply salute the 8 x 10 photo of his father in uniform, taken two years before. Just two years. It seemed like ages.
He wondered what his father was doing today, right now. Tom closed his eyes. He pictured himself standing in the open bay of an airplane, just like his father. His left foot was positioned slightly forward, toes just over the edge of the plane’s metal rim. He felt the deep thrum and vibration of the engines, watched the patchwork of woods and fields far below. Then he jumped clear of the plane, easily, thrusting his right leg forward, stepping out into the open gray sepia sky, feeling the jerk of the line, the silken white parachute billowing above him into the clouds, taking him up, then down down down to land quietly on a barren field white with frost. To save the world. Someday, Tom said to himself, softly. Then opening his eyes, he went to wash up before his soup got cold.
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Amy Logan lives with her family in Eastern Washington state. Her father, Glenn Stratton, proudly served his country as a Sergeant in Battery B of the United States Army’s 778th Anti-aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion in WWII. Her work has been published by Antipodean SF, Endless Dreamer, and Rock Salt Journal among others. She wants her readers to feel something tangible and change, just a little bit, from reading her work.
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