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PROSE
21
a crack in the treeline
fiction By David Widder-Varhegyi
Mother and Father like to play tricks. On a day like today—the day Traf stopped heaving for
good—you go the whole 16 not knowing whether it’s morn time, noon time, or even time. All
day long it just hangs around like a stray cat, not coming and not going. It just hangs, limp, time
waiting on us to decide it’s tomorrow.
My brothers and I run naked, darting through the house, out the front door, and as far as our imag-
inations allow. “Tomorrow,” says my father from his reading chair, “Tomorrow I’m planting a tree
line around the whole lot.” My mother, she loves my father. She loves his rashes.
Today, who couldn’t love my father; I even try squinting my eyes in concentration.
This is what I come up with: he smoked like a man who had every comfort in himself.
Deer start the cat and my eyes follow the tree line until it cracks. My brother gets a whooping
when he drops the eggs. Breakfast will be milk and bread today. I follow the deer through the
crack and I start to cry. “How long has it been?” There have been no christ-mas-es, that I can
recall, where that space in the corner found itself inhabited by the fresh cut tree.
Still, some force long asunder keeps my eyes fixed.
There they are.
“Why are your eyes leaking?”
“Hush, boy.”
“Why?”
“Go back and play.”
“Mommy’s dead.”