Fantasy

    A sparse crowd was gathered on the side of our  old house. The house was, as then, kind of faded gold in color with burnt orange trim, one such accented  board running the length of the house. There was nothing alongside the house on the side facing the mill, no fencing or plantings, so the view of the roof was unobstructed. And that is where all the attention was concentrated---on the roof. The scene involved two avatar figures: one small, one large. 

    We all understood the small creature was fleeing from the larger persona, and had now somehow climbed up on the roof. The larger avatar, much more human in appearance,  was bound and determined to do its duty and capture the smaller figure.  We who were watching were all sympathetic to the plight of the small being, though not hostile to the pursuer, who was just doing his job. We hoped the little figure would be able to escape, but the larger one had leaned a ladder against the roof and was preparing to climb up after the small, so far elusive, fugitive. 

   The roof of the house consisted of large wood shingles, old and most unlikely unstable. We thought that the weight of the larger figure might cause the shingles to slide off and the larger guy would fall off the roof. In addition, we knew he had bad and painful feet, and we were sympathetic  to that.  I, watching, was particularly aware of that because I could feel the pain of his feet registered in my stomach.   But he got off the ladder, and onto the roof, just a few feet from its edge, and began to lift the large shingles, one by one. Those of us watching were hoping that the little avatar had made it to the top of the roof and down the other side, an escape route that its pursuer would be unable to follow.  But after lifting only about a dozen or so shingles, the fugitive was discovered, curled up under the shingle, with what appeared to be wings folded around its small body. The large figure, despite  the pain in its feet,  somehow was able to bring its captured prey back down to the ground. 

  The  watching crowd faded away and the scene shifted to the backyard, to  the area beneath where the clothesline was strung, on a pulley anchored on one side to the end of the summer kitchen and on the other to the frame of the hayloft door. Standing lined up, was a number of  children,  Joe's relatives, all blond and smiling and in the line with them some of our children and grandchildren. There was some discussion of height, and I heard someone say that Danny, who was absent, was 6 feet, 2 inches. I wanted to say I didn't think so, but the cat's wanting her breakfast woke me up, with my stomach  still hurting from the traumatic climb of the larger avatar.