Leaves and Soda Bottles

"Sometimes, I just think that there's a face underneath all the dirt on the ground, sitting there with it's face up, and we're walking all over it. It listens to every word we say and feels every step we take. Or maybe hidden behind the bushes, or the ferns. Maybe it moves around, I dunno, I just feel as though everything that comes out of my head no longer belongs to me but everyone, and that face.. Even if no one is around, that face knows my idea, my thought, my emotion when it comes out of my mouth or my eyes or my fingers." I didn't know how else to say it then. I had always had a problem telling things that were actually in me; I'd rather be discrete about it to the point where my idea isn't even there anymore, but rather just some small sentence followed by an invisible asterisk inside of the idea I'm pouring out. I kicked my feet and looked up into the sky; the wind rushed by and all the leaves shivered.

"I get that a lot." At least is was something, I thought. But she didn't matter anymore, not as much, I wouldn't let her words matter so much. I stared at the clouds; they billowed high into the sky like white mountains, slowly creeping along the face of the sky. "I end up keeping a lot of things inside of me. Sorry if I don't talk about them much, I guess I'd just rather listen to what you're thinking." I still didn't look at her. The wind blew again. "Gabe?" I blew out and looked at her for a moment.

"I'm gonna go check something out, I'll be right back." I said and jumped off of the log. She followed suit.

"Why can't I come?" She asked. I turned around and smiled at her.

"I'm going to a place where you have to be naked." And then I ran off, just like that. I knew that she wouldn't run after me; we've too much pride to bother with each other. Maybe it would always be like that, but either way, I had to speak to the trees about my ideas, the ideas that she wouldn't bother to acknowledge. After awhile of running I just stared at my feet; just blurs on the ground, leaves flying up behind me. I felt like I was running on two, small needles, just floating over the ground. And everything else was just a green and yellow blur until I felt safe and far away. I stopped running and walked off the path, trotted through thickets of vines and branches until I reached a clearing of fallen palm trees. The sun shimmered off of a small pool of water from the last rain.

I went and climbed on of the palm trees, then climbed onto another one that had fallen on top of it and ran up into another, which was higher up and more horizontal. Once there I sat down, away from the mosquitoes. They buzzed silently down below and the wind rustled the leaves again. I closed my eyes and pretended that none of it was there, then tried rebuilding it in my head.

I made the ground a waxy yellow, and the trees were just shafts of quartz with little diamond leaves that sent rainbows flying everywhere when the sun hit them. And the air tasted like an bottle of orange soda. The temporary pond was it's face, and it blinked.

"Heh."