The Vacation

We trampled Mike so he couldn’t find us.  The forest was a wild verdant place but when Mike couldn’t restrain us, it was our city again.  He was sore; we could hear him cursing us far behind us, but we ran laughing into the outstretched arms of our mother as she folded us into the enveloping protection of her green bosom, crossing back into the place where he was the outsider, the clumsy, wary intruder.  Would we let him trick us back?  Perhaps, when we were cold, or bored, or hungry.  Back to the warmth and talking boxes, the smells that make bellies wild, and always always always the blaze of light that fights and claws in frantic terror at the darkness so that its masters don’t have to.  But for now, it’s laughter and defiance, freedom and the vanishing.