Semi-Daily Scribbles

The undeveloped parcel across the highway was a spooky place for us kids. The trees, cedars and hemlocks mostly, sighed and groaned a lot. They disapproved of everything we did, from our bike rides through their territory to the cone wars where we aimed for each other's head. Sometimes we'd find things, like a single red mitten, a busted transistor radio, or a sterno can in our creepy playground. We'd make up stories about a one-armed drifter living in our neighborhood, going through our garbage for useful stuff like shoelaces or HO HOS®. We found a bag of marbles once. They were every hue from yellow to blue, and we fought a protracted cone war over who'd take home that glorious bounty. That was the time the trees decided to speak, rather than make with their usual whispers and moans.

Cry. Die. Time to fly. Ahhhh. Ooohhh. Fly. Cry. Time to die. Ooohhh. Ahhhh.

The marbles lay scattered in that dark, dank woodland until one day, years later, our fears were chopped down to make way for a strip mall.