Chase Stanley

Save This for a Rainy Day

Leah winced as a dot of light leapt from the edge of her compass across a pale blue iris. With a squint, she reexamined her bearings. Three hundred and twenty-eight. Letting out a slight sigh of defiance, she unfurled her brow and lifted her chin to refocus forward. It was a steep climb. Roots jutted from the hillside. They were jagged and gnarled, some menacingly shattered into shiv-like protrusions. Few ancient growths dotted the scene. These were sage pillars of wisdom. They were somehow at once equally leviathan but hauntingly delicate. So immense as to dwarf the onlooker by the shadow of limb alone. So hollowed and fragile as to be felled by the smallest of arboreal wanderers. What remained was a thicket made of saplings. Groupings stretched in unison—a still but violent competition for a drink of the sun. Vines crept down from the taller trees, wrapping around the bases and trailing off into the soil. Their gravity seemed to pull them towards a race of a different sort—a languid descent in search of relief from their infinite hang.