Buffalo Creek

A brother and a sister young and free. 2 dreamers. Building. The trees. The pine trees towering above, their needles scattered about. The rushing water separating the two of them. Building a bridge together, not to reach each other, but to reach something. Maybe just the other side.

The empty hammock swings in the breeze behind him. Holes gape from the snow that has recently melted and made the grass 10 different shades of green. The dirt and the grass mix with the water and make a muddy summer smell. The sun cakes and cooks the mud on his shoes.

She sticks her foot in just to see what wet socks feel like in dry shoes. She plunges into the stream. Soaking wet in all her clothes. Now she can conquer the world. She runs up the hill. He watches her from the other side of the wild creek. He looks up to her. She shows off for him, knowing it's only a matter of time before he tires and leaves her alone in the enchanted but lonely and somehow safe forest.

She finds her tree. Her favorite one. With initials from lives past. She is envious. She wants a lover to bring here. To climb into the abandoned tree house with. To build a bridge with. The thunder claps. Lightning is close. She wants to stay in the forest and challenge the fire. Kill me if you must! She exclaims to herself, looking back to see if anyone heard. Now she is a renaissance warrior princess.

And then the moment arrives. He tires. Her brother, not her imaginary lover. Her imaginary lover would never tire. He would fight the lightning fire of the forest with her. But instead the whines of the baby brother bring her out of her dream and back down the hill to the project at hand. The bridge.

He is all wet too. Only he is cold and fearful. Was he wrong to copy his sister? She comforts him. Or at least she knows she should. It's something the world just tells her. Let's pan for gold. But we don't have pans. That's OK, our hands will work. The thunder gets louder. He doesn't know about the danger of lightning and water and trees. She imagines herself as the hero and brings him inside as the rain begins to drizzle on their little muddied bodies.