The Donkey Tree

The crack of the M-80 rang out and echoed off the damp walls before drowning in the murky creek below. Minnows darted about frantically, from both the explosions and also to avoid the claws of the backward-swimming crawdads looking for a meal. To James and Peter, this damp, hidden world under the bridge was the best place to light off firecrackers in town.

It was also more simply one of the best places to go just to hang out. The bridge was in close proximity to downtown – just a block from Main Street. This closeness meant that it was just a short walk from many locations, such as the town basketball courts, the local convenience store, Five-Star (which had the best drink and snack selection), and basically all of the large hills ascending from either side of Main Street, which were perfect for high-speed bike-racing. It was also always cooler under the bridge – that was definitely a draw – especially in the blistering July heat.

“We’re out,” said James, as the last firecracker exploded from underneath a small pile of rocks, “I’ve got some more back home,” he continued, “we can bike over there and grab them.”

As James and Peter climbed out from under the bridge and grabbed their bikes from the ground by the creek bank, they heard more clearly the music coming from Main Street. It was the annual Fourth of July celebration – or, Fourth of Ju-ly, pronounced in the local vernacular – and though it was only 6:00, the music had already begun. Tuesday’s Gone, by Skynyrd, loudly filled the muggy airspace throughout the downtown area as locals – hailing from all rural parts of the sparsely populated county – had reserved their spots for the fireworks show that evening. They sat lining Main Street in their lawn chairs, greedily sucking down Ale-8 sodas and inhaling funnel cakes, powdered sugar covering the faces of the children as if they were circus clowns.

“I could use an Ale-8 myself,” said Peter, “Let’s head on over to Five-Star before we go snag the rest of those firecrackers.”

In the Five-Star parking lot, the two boys ran into Joe, an older – at least older in the eyes of both James and Peter, who were both sixteen; Joe was nineteen – guy in town who fancied himself a budding rock star. He wore cowboy boots, tight jeans, ripped flannel shirts, and had jet-black hair that hung past his waist. He always wore a bandana. He also wore mascara in his eyes and enjoyed trying to look simultaneously as brooding and also as carefree as possible, like an introverted party animal: a true rock-star – a southern Ziggy Stardust, of sorts.

“Hey there, boooyyysh!” Joe said as James and Peter were strolling out of the store, snacks and drinks in hand. He was leaning on one of the gas pumps. It was odd, because he didn’t have a car. He couldn’t even drive – didn’t have a license. It was as if he simply needed something to lean on so he could look as much like James Dean as possible; the gas pump was the only thing he could find.

“What the hell are the pair of you doing?” he said, “You aren’t staying for the fireworks? The old, annual patriotic ‘splosions?”

“We’ll be back for them,” James responded, “We’re going back to get some more firecrackers.”

“Well you boys better hurry up! They’re supposed to start lighting them up soon as it gets dark; should be around eight or eight thirty.”

“God dammit, Joe!” James responded humorously, “You think we don’t know what time it gets dark? We’ve been stumbling around these streets since we were little kids!”

“I know I know… Hey! I know… just making sure and… whatnot… Anyway, where are you all gonna watch them? I’ll meet up with you when you get back.”

James and Peter weren’t always fans of hanging out with Joe. They liked him well enough; he was just a little much sometimes. He liked talking about music, though, which the boys appreciated. He was a hell of a musician, too, at least by local standards. He could rip a guitar to shreds:

“We’ll be under the bridge after we get back from James’s house, probably within the next half-hour” said Peter, “’Come light off some M-80s with us.”

“Hell yeah!” responded Joe, “We’ll make some ‘splosions of our own! Hell yeah! I’ll see you boysh’ there!”

A car horn blared. It was idling in front of the gas pump Joe was leaning on, which he was blocking. Startled, he jumped, raised up two hands peaceably, and backed away from the pump, as if laying down his guns before the local authorities in an old western film.

“I’ll see you boysh’ there,” he whispered with finality, as James and Peter began their biking ascension up the hilly blocks neighboring Main Street, on the way to James’s parent’s house.

* * *

James rifled through his hidden (at least he thought it was hidden) drawer in his bedroom for more M-80s. Eventually, he pulled out a long strip of fifty, in plastic, festive encasement.

“Shit yeah!” he said as he uncovered them, “I wasn’t sure I still had these! Let’s hit the road!”

As the pair of boys were leaving, they ran into his next-door neighbor, Ava. She was also sixteen, and in the same grade as both James and Peter. They both liked her well enough – they considered her their friend – they were just unfortunately too awkward around girls to feel comfortable around her. She strolled up to them, eyeing the firecrackers in James’s hands.

“Where are you all going with all those?” she asked.

“Uhhh…heading back down to the bridge,” said James, “We’ve been lighting them off, killing time until the fireworks show.”

“Ah, cool!” Ava responded, “I’ll head down there with you all, just let me go grab my bike first.”

Ava turned and ran toward the back of her house. James and Peter eyed one another. They never knew how to feel when Ava tagged along. They both liked her; she just made them feel a little on edge, as opposed to the total freedom they felt when they were hanging out exclusively with one another.

“Uhh… what the ever living hell are you two staring at?” Ava said as she rounded the corner of the house with her bike, an expression of judgement painting her face. James and Peter were staring into space – Peter up to the clouds and James down at the cracked asphalt of the driveway.

“Let’s hit the damn road!” Ava exclaimed like a pissed-off drill sergeant.

* * *

The descent from the elevated neighborhoods back down to Main Street was one of the most thrilling aspects of riding bikes in town. The three of them blazed down the hill at top speed, (unintelligently) not even braking at stop signs. They knew these streets; they could feel when cars were coming, and from where.

A local dog, Cleo, appeared from behind one of the houses and began barking and chasing them down the road. She was some sort of beagle/terrier mix, except with strangely long legs. She could really book it. She even kept up with the bikes. She wasn’t an unfriendly dog; she would follow them all the way down to the bridge. She’d leave once they started lighting the firecrackers, though; she wasn’t a fan of that.

Joe was already waiting back under the bridge. He was sitting on one of the larger rocks, legs crossed, staring into the water at the now stagnant minnows and crawdads.

“Damn, boys!” he exclaimed upon seeing them, “I thought I was gonna be waiting down here all night! It’s already starting to get dark!”

It, in fact, wasn’t darkening quite yet; Joe was wrong about that. It was 6:45. A slight hint of twilight shown in the clear sky, but the day was still sunny; the air still thick. The evening had made itself vaguely recognized, but the smog of the lingering afternoon still dominated the climate.

“It won’t get dark for another hour or so, at least!” said James as he shoved the fifty-pack of M-80s into Joe’s chest. “Here you go, big boy, we brought the goods!”

“Hell yeah!” Joe bellowed gutturally as he lit up a water bomb and dropped it into the pool where the minnows and crawdads swam.

The bomb went off and the aquatic fauna darted around. The minnows swam as frantically as they were able, finding crevices under the rocks, becoming unsatisfied with them, and then turning to look for new shelter. The crawdads, though still unnerved, were much less agitated. They hopped backward, analyzed the state of the water, and then floated back down to their previous encampment, waiting to try to catch disoriented minnows swimming across the cloudy pool.

“Damn, dude!” Peter said after Joe’s bomb exploded, “These minnows are already stressed enough as it is! Their entire existence has been relegated to this one little puddle, where they get hunted all day by big-ass, ferocious crawdads, and your dumb ass has to drop bombs on them!”

“Aw, shut the hell up, Pete!” Joe responded, “You do this shit all the time too; you know it! You were down here just before you saw me over at Five Star, I’ll bet!”

Joe was obviously right; Peter had been. For some reason, though, Peter had never thought about the rightness or wrongness of his own actions, when it was just he and James dropping the bombs; it was witnessing Joe do it that actualized its immorality. Maybe because Joe was older. Maybe Peter had given himself a pass to act sadistically because of his age. He had used his own perceived immaturity as a scapegoat. He came to that realization after Joe called him on his hypocrisy. Peter sat slouching glumly on the rocks.

“What the ever living fuck is wrong with you?” said James, noticing Peter’s shift in mood.

“Ah, nothing. Just thinking about some stuff.” Peter was staring back down into the water, where the minnows and crawdads had finally settled.

“Well, stop thinking so goddamn much!” said James, as he lit another water bomb and tossed it nonchalantly into the pool.

“What do you think they think about all this?” Peter said.

“Uh… who?” responded James.

“The minnows and the crawdads. All the sentient shit that lives in the creek.”

“I can guarantee you they couldn’t give even the tiniest little shit-biscuit. They probably don’t even know how to care about whether they live or die. Everything they do is just instinct, dude; there’s no thought that goes into any of it. Take this, for example,”

James lit yet another water bomb and dropped it into the pool. It exploded, and the wildlife resumed their frenzied scurry.

“These minnows seem scared shitless, right? Hell, maybe they are! But their version of being scared shitless isn’t anything like what we think of as being scared shitless. It’s just a series of instinctive reactions; they have no choice of doing anything else, because that’s – James was now pointing to the minnows swimming around – what they’ve evolved to do. The second any one of these minnows finds something more evolutionarily beneficial than the supposed fear it’s currently experiencing, it’ll drop being afraid in favor of whatever else it finds – probably some food. Hell, watch this!”

James grabbed a Twinkie he had bought at Five Star, tore off a chunk, and threw it into the pool. The spongy snack cake – after absorbing as much as it could handle – began breaking up and sinking into the water, not long after which the minnows – temporarily relieved of their fear – swam up and began nipping at it.

“See!” exclaimed James, “Point proven! I had to waste part of a perfectly good, completely nutritious Twinkie to make that point, too! Don’t think I won’t remember that, Pete: you fuckin’ owe me, both for the Twinkie and for the sense of existential relief I’ve undoubtedly provided you with.”

“I don’t know…” said Peter. “In order to legitimately assume that these minnows don’t experience genuine fear, or at least that they don’t experience fear in the same way that we do, we have to make quite a few leaps I’m not sure I’m ready to make. For one, we have to assume that our perception of fear is its true perception, or at least truer than that which is experienced by the minnows. That seems likely, but how in the hell are we supposed to really know? On top of that, in order to assume that they don’t focus on, or think about anything, we have to assume that their perception of time is the same as ours. To us, it obviously seems like they lose interest in being horrified pretty quickly, but to them, who knows if that’s the case? They have short lives, you know? At least short compared to ours. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that these water bombs being dropped on them was a major event in their lives! Much the same as the Twinkie dropping down probably also was.”

“Mana from heaven!” James shouted! “I agree with them on that, though! It’s a major event in my life every time I get a Twinkie. That’s why it was such a generous thing I did, giving part of mine to them. I’m a benevolent bastard!”

At that point, recognizing that there hadn’t been any water bombs go off for the last few minutes, Cleo scampered back under the bridge, trampled into the pool, and started greedily lapping up the water and whatever soggy bits of Twinkie remained. The fish darted away once again.

“…but even if there is a benevolent God,” James concluded, “It still doesn’t prove that the universe isn’t one cruel, fucked up, indifferent place; we have our trusted Cleo here to thank for giving us that example. Looks like our experiment is complete!”

James clapped Peter on the back and began pulling out another firecracker. Ava, who was sitting quietly on one of the rocks, joined the discussion:

“Maybe it doesn’t matter, you know?” she said, staring into the pool. “Maybe the minnows have some sort of emotional depth or intelligence; maybe they even have emotions in some way comparable to the types of emotion we experience. It could be true. The real questions, though – at least the ones that we first need to answer – are whether it matters, in the cosmic sense, and whether it’s something that we personally, as beings with much more perceived power than they, should give a shit about.”

“Of course we should give a shit about it!” replied Peter, “We can’t just go through our lives ignoring the suffering of lesser beings. That’s totally fucked up!”

“Maybe it is,” Ava continued, “But hear me out. Maybe we shouldn’t care about it because we aren’t intelligent enough, or powerful enough, to change it for the better. We as humans like to think that we are intelligent, emotionally complex beings – the most intelligent and emotionally complex in the known universe! Maybe that’s true, but it seems unlikely. All you have to do is look at the results of our actions, you know? Look at the product of what we’ve accomplished. It ain’t shit, is it? It’s definitely more negative than positive. We’re more destructive than anything else; we’re not naturally peaceful or caring at all. That’s what I’m saying: maybe it’s pretentious of us to assume that we have the right to even attempt to change anything. Maybe we’re not the beings who should be doing the changing at all! Maybe we should try and adapt to our environment as it changes around us, not try and save anyone or anything else. Hell, the only reason any animal species is ever in a bad spot is because of us in the first place. Think about endangered species, and why they’re endangered. Take these minnows, for example! Think about what’s going on here. We’re actually having a heated moral debate about whether or not we should feel bad about aimlessly killing them. What if, instead, we just didn’t think about that? What if, instead, we just ignored the goddamn minnows and crawdads?”

“God dammit, Ava,” Joe responded, as he adjusted his bandana, “Now I remember why I don’t like hanging out with your ass. Now I have to feel shitty about doing something as simple as throwing water bombs in a creek. Shit! If I’ve got to feel bad about doing this, imagine how bad I’m gonna feel about all the other stupid shit I do. God dammit!”

The four of them laughed together. Cleo, recognizing their excitement, continued splashing in the creek, barking and jumping up onto the laps of everyone in the group, spreading mud all over their pants. The water in the creek had become so muddy that it was no longer possible to see what the minnows or crawdads were doing, or how many of them were even still alive.

“Hey!” James said, “The fireworks are starting soon! We’ve been sitting down here longer than we thought! Let’s get the hell out of here and go find a good spot!”

* * *

Main Street was even more crowded, now that the evening had more definitively set in. Lawn chairs were spread out across Main Street, which had been closed off by the local police to allow for the large crowd. Kids ran around with sparklers, waving them mostly amiably, but sometimes also attacking one another, grinning sadistically upon recognition of fear upon the faces of their alleged friends.

Classic rock was still blaring throughout the block, this time Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd was playing:

“…we’re just… two lost souls, swimming in a fish bowl… year after year…”

“Hey!” exclaimed Peter, “I know where we can go watch the fireworks!”

“Oh yeah?” responded James, “and where the hell is that? This place is crowded as a pack of… goddamn… sardines. Crowded as a pool of minnows!”

“Good one…” said Peter, “But no, really. I know a place we can go. There’s this ladder behind my dad’s office that leads up to the rooftops of the Main Street strip of buildings. We can use it to climb up to the cupola of the Robertson Building.”

“Holy shit, are you serious?” responded James, “Why the hell haven’t you ever told me about this before? We could’ve been up there tossing off firecrackers every day!”

“That’s… that’s why I didn’t tell you…” said Peter.

“Fair enough,” said James, “Let’s go!”

The Robertson Building was the tallest building in town. It was old – erected in 1896. It was a dusty red brick building with an onion-domed cupola, from its peak offering a 360-degree view of town. It was a vantage point from which the entire town could be easily seen. No one ever went up there; it was always vacant. It served no purpose other than being a vintage, attractive structure on which residents could take pride in local architectural ingenuity and history.

“Damn!” said James as he ascended the last rung of the ladder up to the dusty stone floor of the cupola, “We’re going to have a hell of a view from up here. We’ll see every single bomb bursting in air. I may even shed a few patriotic tears!”

“Hell yeah!” responded Joe, clicking his cowboy boots against the stone in tune with the music rising up from Main Street, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a view like this. Not in this little town, anyway. You can see everything from up here!”

Ava, though not as vocal in her excitement as James or Joe, was still clearly curious about this new line of sight. She poked her head out from between the columns of the cupola, scanning the horizon and taking in all she could see from every angle. It wasn’t a tall building, only four stories in all, including the cupola, but even that was towering in this particular town.

“I think I can see my mom and dad sitting out on the back patio!” she said, gazing into the distance, using her hand as a blind to shield her eyes from the rapidly setting sun. “They’re probably sitting out there, ready to watch the fireworks. They look tiny – like ants.”

“I’ve heard ants love sitting on their patios, drinking beer and watching festive fireworks,” said Joe.

After their initial excitement subsided, the four of them sat down on the stone floor, backs against the wall of the cupola, relaxing and waiting for the sun to finish setting. Once that natural shade shifted below the horizon, a static microphone voice came from Main Street, from where the music had ceased.

“All right, guys and gals; it’s about that time! Everyone take your seats, because we’re about to begin the fireworks show. It’s starting here in about ten minutes, so make sure you and yours get whatever you need and settle in. Get that funnel-cake! Get that coldbeer, and plop yourself down!”

“Hell yeah!” said James, pointing over into the distance, toward Cemetery Hill, “You know they’re going to be shooting them off from over there on top of the hill; we’re going to have the perfect view.”

* * *

The fireworks did indeed come from Cemetery Hill. The gravestones lining the hillside – obscured by the ever-dimming twilight – disappeared into the black of night, as fireworks shot from them like spirits rising ecstatically from the grave, shooting colorfully off into the universe.

A rainbow explosion split open and lit up the sky. In between bursts, in the short time in which the sky briefly returned to darkness, hundreds of stars became momentarily visible, as if remnants of fireworks now hanging peacefully above, like the genesis of cosmic creation.

Ava, bewitched by the display, keenly hung her head out from between the columns of the cupola. The other three boys were in a similar state of intoxication. Down in the street below, periodic oooohs and ahhhhhhs rose up into the summer night, creating a crashing, cymbal-like percussion, as if in rhythm with the booming drum of each blinding explosion.

After some time, the bursts subsided, and all became quiet. Everyone in the street began fumbling around in anticipation; they knew this was only a brief intermission in order to build up suspense for the grand finale. People chatted aimlessly. Children once again ran around, chasing each other with sparklers. Some of them looked in disappointment back toward Cemetery Hill, as they asked their parents whether the show had finished. It, of course, hadn’t quite finished. The grand finale finally, inevitably, detonated – a patriotic red, white, and blue display. The explosions came one after another, alighting the sky even more brightly. It was as if there were actual bombs bursting in air.

When the show finished, residual smoke wafted down from Cemetery Hill, filling Main Street with a burnt, smoky aroma.

* * *

“Hell yeah!” said Joe as he gave Peter a friendly punch, “That was a hell of a show! I wasn’t expecting much, being that it was just a local thing, but that was impressive. Makes me wanna go out and do something, you know?”

“Fuck yeah I know!” responded James, “Let’s do something! We can’t just end the night here. Hey, I know – let’s go hit up the rope swing! It’s a warm night, and there’s some decent moonlight, so we should be able to see pretty well.”

“I don’t know man” Peter responded, “That seems kind of fucking stupid. We may be able to see fairly well above the river, but we won’t be able to see shit once we get down into the water.”

“Aw, we’ll be all right,” said James, “Don’t worry, dude – it’ll be a hell of a time!”

“I tend to agree with Peter,” said Ava. “It sounds like a good time, and it’s definitely warm enough tonight, but we won’t be able to see much of anything down there in the river”

“Well…” responded James, “what the hell does that matter, anyway? You don’t need to be able to see very well to swim, do you? It’s instinct! You really think that the crawdads and the minnows see shit when they’re swimming around down there? Hell no! Plus, we’ll make sure there aren’t any snags before we jump; we’re not dumb. It’ll be fine.”

Still not convinced, Peter and Ava nonetheless relented and decided to join James and Joe on their trip to the rope swing. The swing was located not far from Main Street – only a few blocks away at the nearby Beach-Fork River. The creek where the group had earlier been lighting off water bombs and discussing the morality of killing what they considered to be lesser beings ran directly through the downtown area and then – after a few blocks – dumped into the river.

The rope swing had been there as long as anyone cared to remember. It hung from a tree that sat leaning into the muddy water. The middle of the tree, from where most of its branches sprang, was – thanks to the uneven, shifting mud in which it was rooted – knotted up chaotically, as if the creation of an angry, disobedient, terraforming child drawing pictures on an interdimensional canvas. This natural knot seemed – to most people in town, and also to most of the few visitors who passed by – to look like the head of a donkey. Everyone called it the Donkey Tree, because of its large, lurching, comedic face.

* * *

As soon as they climbed down from the cupola, the group grabbed their bikes, which sat leaning against the side of the Robertson Building. Cleo, being an ever obedient and always eager dog, was waiting patiently. They pedaled in the direction of the rope swing, and being that it was only a few blocks away, reached it within no more than a couple of minutes. As soon as they arrived, they threw their bikes on the flat, damp grass and walked over to the rope swing, which hung downward from the tree toward the river.

“Well, guys,” James said, “The old donkey is still here, as usual, glaring at us as stubbornly as only a donkey is capable. Old gal never changes!”

The thick roots of the Donkey Tree were half exposed on the side of the riverbank, jutting out like alien tentacles. The portion of the river into which the swing swung was usually at least six feet deep. It would get slightly shallower when there was intense drought, but in this particular year, it had been rainier than usual, so the water was plenty deep. James had reason to be optimistic.

James strolled confidently over to the tree. After climbing the few 2x4 makeshift stairs nailed to the trunk, he began pulling in the rope.

“All right, boys and girl!” said James, “Here goes nothing! It is darker than shit down there; you all weren’t kidding about that.”

“Hold on, hold on!” responded Peter, “Didn’t we agree that we were at least going to check the water and make sure there weren’t any snags?”

“Ah, true, true. Well, then, go ahead! Get your ass in there and go check!”

Peter, smiling, reluctantly took off his shirt and slid down the muddy slope leading to the bank of the river. Cleo followed him, excitedly leaping out into the water and barking at Peter as she followed him around. Peter ducked under the water a multitude of times, surfacing and resurfacing.

“All right.” He finally said, “There isn’t anything down there. You can go ahead. I’m coming back up; it’s fucking cold! Must be from all the rain we got the other week.”

“Hell yeah!” said James, “Well, you better get your ass out of the way, because I’m a-coming!”

James then kicked off from the rickety old tree and swung into the air above the middle of the river. The Donkey Tree creaked and groaned under James’s weight – he was a pretty big kid for his age. Peter was at this time swimming semi-frantically back toward the riverbank to avoid getting caught in the wake. Wide-eyed, excited Cleo, who didn’t have much of a clue what was going on, gazed with her mouth open and her tongue hanging ajar up at James as he soared through the air, the trajectory of his ass projecting to land directly on her snout.

He didn’t land on Cleo. It looked like he did, but he somehow didn’t. He fell directly where she was swimming, though, that much was certain. Cleo, her happiness then shifting into frantic terror, let out a yelp as she unsuccessfully attempted to swim to safety. James, after letting go of the rope, did a 180 twist into a cannonball, and there was a gargantuan splash. For a brief couple of seconds, nothing was visible, just bubbling at the point of impact.

* * *

When the bubbles and the wake from the splash resided, Cleo was still swimming comfortably in the same spot, as if nothing had even touched her. James hadn’t yet come up from the water. Vexed, Ava and Joe ran to the edge of the steep slope leading to the riverbank, looking for signs of James. Peter, having made it back to the riverbank, sat exhaustedly in the mud, his hands planted in parallel fashion behind himself, sinking into the goop. James didn’t appear. After a time, Peter, now confused, slid back through the mud into the water and swam over to where James had jumped in.

The spot was exactly where Peter had been ducking in and out of the water checking for snags. He repeated this previous motion, this time feeling around in the dark, murky water for a body. He felt nothing. He dove in and out, time and again. He scoured – at least as far as he could tell – the entirety of the bottom of the river, and he could never find a single sign of James.

“What in absolute the fuck, guys! What the fuck! Where did he go?” Peter said as he splashed around in the river as if he’d forgotten how to swim – as if the victim of a shark attack.

“Where the fuck did he go?” He continued, still splashing.

He eventually dove under once again, this time more pathetically. Joe kicked off his cowboy boots and joined Peter in the water. He, fittingly enough, couldn’t swim, so he waded around in the river as deep as he was comfortable – about nipple deep – and began grazing his feet against the bottom, checking for a body, lifting up each of the rocks with his feet, as if James may yet be hidden under one of them. At one point – after he had lifted up a particularly large rock – a large snake slithered by him, brushing against his calf.

“Fuck! Aw shit!” he yelled as he lost his footing and fell into the water. Startled but unhurt, he regained his composure and continued his search.

After a time, Peter saw Ava’s silhouette atop the slope above the riverbank:

“Where did he land?” she shouted

“What?” responded Peter.

“Where the hell do you think James landed in the water?” Ava repeated.

“About right there…” said Peter, pointing to the place where James had splashed.

“Okay, I’m coming in!” said Ava, climbing the 2x4 steps up the tree as she pulled in the rope swing.

Peter lifted his arms in protest, but it was no use – she was too fast.

The Donkey Tree once again whined as Ava swung out into the flowing darkness, though this time, being that Ava weighed much less than James, the sound was different. It was deeper – more emphatic, but less questioning, as if, though unsure about what James was doing when he had jumped off, it was now certain; now sadistically confident about what Ava was doing.

She unintentionally spun around on the rope a few times before releasing into the air, twirling like a chaotic gymnast who had lost control; like a smoking, spiraling jet crashing to earth. Ava also crashed.

She landed hard in what seemed to be exactly the same place as James. The snap of bone emerged from the depths as soon as she made contact with the shallow water – her arm splintering and her skull cracking. The water, which was already so black and murky, turned somehow even darker as blood drained from Ava’s body.

Both Peter and Joe – who were still swimming, or wading, in Joe’s case – nearby in water inexplicably still plenty deep, swam over frantically to where Ava lay floating. As they approached, the water – which they were sure had previously been six or eight feet deep at least – began to shallow, its depth, when they reached her, being less than a foot. Ava was dead, that much was certain. Nonetheless Peter, now confused and completely delirious, began checking for a pulse and making to stop the bleeding. He continued this for some time, growing more and more crazed the more he tried. Eventually, Joe, pale faced and vacant, grabbed him from behind and held him motherly.

They rocked back and forth in a state of harmonious, panicked detachment, as if the inexplicability of what had just happened both prevented them from believing anything, and also numbed them from truly feeling anything – but had also caused them to fall into a dark emotional state the existence of which they had previously been completely unaware.

James didn’t show up. Not where he had landed, not downriver, not anywhere. Cleo whined, sniffing at Ava’s lifeless body as she circled it, nudging it as she tried to coerce it back from death. Peter and Joe, their bodies growing cold both from the water and from the blood draining from their faces, continued sitting in a state of void detachment. Peter, collapsing from weakness, caught himself on a rock in the shallow water. As he gripped its slick, mossy surface, he felt a crawdad backpedal from underneath, brushing against the top of his hand. He looked up at the sky. The stars, on this particular night seemingly infinite in number, glistened just as they had during the fireworks show. A cosmic genesis.

This thought: the apathy of the universe in the face of his own gargantuan, tragic, personal event, was too much to handle. Peter shifted his head away from the expanse of space and turned back toward the rope swing. His eyes met the ancient, knotted, wooden eyes of the Donkey Tree, which seemed somehow more alive than they had previously: much more alive, as if, having consumed the sustenance of James’s body and Ava’s blood, it was once again, at long last, well fed.

Peter sank into the water. He felt aquatic life brushing against his calves. The stars were bright. The night was again calm.