"Like a flying squirrel!" he boomed, with a grand smile, patting the carbuncled trunk of the tree he was still mid-way up.

"Although it is not mine, it is the grandest adventure of my life…" Barbara moaned to the trunk she leaned against, as if she could feel the life of Walt, perched higher, by the back of his knees, pulsing right under the bark of the tree, like on secret wires – down to the spot where she leaned against it.

I wonder if I could lean against the tree long enough to create a warm spot on it, she idly thought.

Illustration from Surrealizations

Walt visited her several nights of the week, but during the days, he was conspicuously absent from school. What she heard from snooping 'round the Nurse's Office, well, actually, just asking the receptionist who handles all the late excuses and such – was that Walt was stuck at home with a case of scarlet fever, and obviously, the older you are when you contract it, the more severe the case is. The way he was able to bluff through the check-ups was a persistent rash covering his face and arms – not particularly bumpy, but a clear delineation of inflammation.

He rolled in his bed with a psoriasis of sweaty sighs issuing from his mouth and landing on his pillowcase, never making it any further than the mobiles and monsters so recently modeled from clay. A conspicuous poster exclaiming, "New York, New York," hung above the headboard and his clammy, inflamed face.

The truth is, he was clammy and exhausted from the exertion of his nightly acrobatics. But the fat moon couldn't last forever. Or could his stamina. Or his sanity.

Toward the end of the week, he and Barbara had thoroughly emptied their families' stock of canned meat-products, and began to devise ways to break into the butcher's.

Walt fervently denied any urges to take his blood-thirst to a live sheep, cattle, or even… pet population, but towards the end, they were devising ways to break into the butcher's shop, even after loading up on hamburgers after school.

The last night of the moon’s strange cycle, Barbara arrived at the oak tree where they usually met – an old one, maybe two-hundred years – and found the note in Walt's elaborate John Hancock saying, "I am going to do something bad."

She knew he had been eyeing Mr. Roosevelt's chicken coop, but that's not… bad.

She felt nervous, waiting for a couple hours… would he show?

Clouds blew quickly through the autumn sky, and I should not be here…kept running through her head.

I have to be here…just in case…he comes staggering back, like some Grendel from a kill…

She waited until she found herself falling asleep, and she knew she had to sneak back in the house.

And no one ever heard of Walt Henning, ever again.

1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *