At the Intersection of Past and Future: A Novel
BY CLIFF MUSIAL
Prologue: An infinitely short past
Eleven years, a few lazy spins around the Sun. And then he reached for the ancient pine’s highest branch, a spindly little thing.
Chapter 1: Slip
Sappy fingers not quite sticky enough sliding off. Strained, straightened, desperate, clawing for anything, even the shallow ridges in the pine bark.
Chapter 2: Suspension
Sky arching overhead muddled and blue-gray, speckled by little flocks of birds fighting the wind. Everything hanging from a frayed string. Dark green needles, bits of bark ripped off by his nails, his petrified fingers, his stomach beneath his ribcage. Waiting for the inevitable, the audience in that moment after the performance ends when someone has to clap first. Before crashing through fifty feet of hundred-year-old limbs, the boy considering what if I can actually fly but never knew it until now.
Chapter 3: Terror
Gravity tugging politely on the back of his shirt. It’s nothing personal. But what goes up must come down.
Epilogue: An infinitely long future
Four seconds, the entire process of falling in love through copulation for most of the animal kingdom. And then it would have made a good story weren’t the unforgiving earth going to crush his eleven year-old bones so permanently.