The Tear Tree

This story starts with an explosion…1

“Nathanial!” a boy cried running towards another much older boy.2

“Yes?” the alder boy replied he must have been Nathanial.3

“The Hospital… It… It…”4

“It what? What happened?”5

“It Exploded.”6

Time slowed almost to a Holt. All Nathanial could hear was his mind hoping. All his family were in the hospital and now it had exploded on him. He ran to the place where the hospital had once been and started frantically searching threw the wreckage but he found them, black and dead. So he cried. As each tear hit the ground it became grass and soon Nathanial realised that he was suddenly sitting on a small hill in the middle of a river.7

There were trees to either side of the river and the sounds could be heard of a waterfall a bit downstream. Nathanial crept of the mound into the water and walked a bit away from the mound. To his surprise the water was quite shallow and hardly pulled at all. Nathanial walked to the edge of the waterfall and looked down to what was below. More trees a bit of swamp and… was that a cottage? What was such a house as that doing beside a swamp? There was a grunting noise from behind and he turned to see the grass mound walking towards him. He freaked for a moment as it approached but then fear turned to confusion as it just passed by. Nathanial watched as like a sugar glider it floated down to the swampland and continued walking onward threw the trees and to wherever. Then more grunting and Nathanial found himself lost in a heard of the strange grass sloth’s. All of them just passed by and glided to the ground like the first. Nathanial spotted a small one and came up with an idea. As it jumped he did also and he landed on its back. Then the two of them glided to the ground in front of the cottage.8

Nathanial dismounted the creature then paused to look at it a moment.9

“Sit!” he commanded. It sat10

“Stay!” he then continued. The creature yawned in defiance.11

Nathanial went to walk inside and the creature began to walk of. Nathanial shrugged and continued towards the cottage door where he heard what seemed to be the tail end of an argument.12

“… I don’t care, Hodge!” Came an old woman’s voice.13

“Well I do care and so does the bill of spiritual guidance!” Came a second much more manly voice.14

“Oh don’t you go bringing that back up. I tell you every time you bring that up my actions wind up being for the better!”15

“Page four hundred and thirty, paragraph six clearly states that spiritual guidance…”16

“Can only be to point a person or animal in the right direction, yeah don’t go making quotations. I know the blasted thing off by heart thanks to you!”17

“Well clearly you don’t as you are still making abductions!”18

“I don’t have time for this I have to get these banners up on the wire.” The old woman then came out threw the opened doorway and marched up to a clothes line which Nathanial was certain wasn’t there before. She placed two baskets of banners on a dry rock and started to pin them on the line, one black then one green and then a black one again repeating in that general order.19

“You wouldn’t be interested in giving me a hand rather than just standing there?” the woman asked. She suddenly sounded a slight bit sweeter. “I’m sorry they weren’t all up before you got here but my door was being a little stubborn.” There was a hint of humour in her voice so Nathanial laughed. “Alternatively you could always go inside and assist me in organising my books.” Nathanial walked inside the cottage and found a literal mountain of books that needed re shelving. It was a surprise that the ceiling went up so high. He stepped back outside.20

“I think I’ll help you with the banners.” He said.21

“A wise choice.” The old lady said in an oracle’s kind of way. “The order is black, green, black, green.”22