Number Nine

Sa and Atee landed in a tree, thousands of feet higher than the worms and primates on the ground. Luckily, one ancient wooden branch was strong enough for them to balance on.

They knew that they should climb down but the view was so gorgeous that they waited six days watching the sun rise and set. After the first couple of days, their stomachs stopped growling, their eyes stopped watering and their hearts stopped aching.

They were hundreds of feet above where even the next leaf grew. The humidity distorted the light like a flame, growing stronger the closer one came to the muddy ground. Up above, where they sat it was crisp and fair. The branch the dry. The sky was a pleasant, pale green.

Even higher were other trees and their canopies obstructed the flooding flow of star lights. Some of the pink stars still shone between the twigs at the top layer of the canopy.

Sa and Atee both remembered their first feelings and thoughts, as they fell they both believed that they were falling onto a pebbly ground. The dense canopy looked like dead earth from the sky. The sky was orange with streaks of deep violish-blue, they felt an unnatural force guiding them softly onto this branch. It seemed to disrupt the principles of reality. Nevertheless, they were here now.

Atee was curious why the tree wouldn;t sway despite when the kicked it her hardest way above its center of gravity. It must be well rooted, she thought.

Sa was curious why a piece of bark he tossed off fell sharply at first, and then floated down like a deather once it reached where the leaves grew.

The tree was curious why Sa didn't just try jumping off itself, surely he too would float down.

A small bird flew over the canopy, nobody saw it, and a feather left its body. The feather dove nose first towards the worms and primates. The bird flew on, alone.