RIP Story: Sept 30th, 2024
Passing through the arch would be the last time he’d see this wall. A backdrop to his childhood, soon to be the character in someone else’s story. The wall was a mountain range when he was a child. It was something that blocked him but something provided adventure and something to climb. He stood under the arch looking at the places where his child-sized hands fit so perfectly.
A deer and her foal caught his eye moving in the forest. He watched them until they ran away and said out load “It’s safe here now.” He shuddered at the memory of his father taking him hunting. What started as adventurous trips of being sneaky and spending time with his father, aged into dread for killing another animal of the forest.
Killing humans came easy, sneaking up on unsuspecting forest creatures lost any appeal when his father forced him to finish off a not-yet-dead stag. The exhaustion in the breath, the aura of fear and finality for this creature were more than 10-year-old Danev could bear.
The house would be empty now and fall into disrepair. No one was coming back and it was too far from the closest town for anyone to stumble upon and take over the home. The forest would reclaim the land, and quickly.
“One last time,” he thought to himself, and he climbed on top of the wall then hopped on top of the archway. This was his greatest triumph as a little boy. Standing on the top of the archway. He took to sitting there as a child to ambush whoever was walking by. His mother yelled to not fall off and his father yelled at him not to braing the archway to the ground. He stodd there now, a full grown adult and the archway felt as strong as it ever did.
“I guess I ended up ok,” Draven mouthed quietly to his parents. Then he jumped off the top of the archway to the ground. His last act at his childhood home was something he had never done before. His final memory of home built on the wall that supported his childhood.
Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.
EPILOGUE: Fun write. I got a tattoo last weekend and this was one of the inspiration images. The tattoo is a depiction of the black & white side of my arm transitioning into the color side of arm. All I knew going into this RIP session was that I wanted to walk through the archway and tell a story about it. This is what we ended up with. Hope you enjoyed.
