Stone spring

85

Me roamed, looking for Leafy Boys. The cut leash still dangled from his neck. He was panting, bloodied but uninjured, deeply scared, lost.

In this strange place trees grew on salty land, and fires sprouted away from the hearths where the grounders usually kept them. The world was all broken down and jumbled up. He longed for the canopy, or failing that the security of the leash and the net. But the only grounders he found lay dead or dying.

Then he found another Leafy, alive. A girl. She was feeding on a dog, its belly ripped open by a spear. The smell of blood reminded him how hungry he was. He pushed the girl aside and shoved his face into the dog’s open belly, and tore away a mouthful of meat. But he hadn’t eaten all day, and something about the blood trickling down his throat worked in him, and his gut ached. He crouched, and let out an enormous fart, and then a bit of shit dribbled from his bare backside.

The girl stared at him. Then she laughed.

He laughed too. He felt better. Together they pushed their faces into the dog’s belly.

The food made him feel better, and he thought more clearly. He remembered the way they had come, the way the grounders had driven them here. They had come from the south and climbed down into this bowl of land. Then that was the way they must return. Maybe they would find the grounders again. Better yet, they might find their way back to the forest canopy, the endless green.

He picked up the dog. The girl fought and snapped, until she saw he did not mean to take it from her. He slung it over his shoulder, still chewing its flesh. With the girl at his side he loped off to the west, across the salty land.