A  LONG SHOT (2002)

Tommy carefully placed “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” face-down on the seat of his swing and sized-up the small gathering of trees standing as backdrop in an un-tendered area beyond the cross-knitted wire fence of his backyard. Some of the trees were standing straight while others were shooting upward for the sun in a slanted fashion. There was only one tree with a sturdy forked branch at a manageable height; the rests had thin, skeletal branches along their trunks. Around and about them were a thriving and undulating blanket of green lalangs, wild creepers, brown leaves, dead twigs and fallen branches. He fixed his gaze at that one tree of promise.

 

In the garden shed he chose an assortment of planks from the shelf above the lawn mover. Using a 2B pencil, he marked out the desired lengths of 6-inches onto a few strips and continued with 3-feet for the rests. The planks were placed one at a time across an open cement drain and Tommy stepped on each with his left foot as he grinded his Dad’s hand-saw into them and, whenever required, broke them at the seam with a kick from his right foot. He then placed the cut woods into a bundle and tied them up with a discarded piece of bath towel taken from amongst the bag of rags that his Mom kept.

 

The ground and wild vegetation had a life of their own. White ants fed themselves frantically on damp and decaying wood while bumble bees hovered around and dragonflies darted about. Tommy thought of snakes, centipedes, scorpions and iguanas. As he stood with sweat trickling from his head, body and limps, ‘Shouldn’t I back out now?’ flashed momentarily across his mind. He took a good look at the targeted tree and turned to his bundle of construction materials. Then, he felt enveloped by the bright and glorious sun with its power to pierce the open ground and expose whatsoever were hidden from the naked eye. And, the sky was not about to grow dark for a long while to come. Tommy willed not to abandon his quest. ‘Forward, march!’ sprang forth as his battle cry.

 

Wielding his Dad’s parang, Tommy slashed his way through doggedly until he reached the bottom of the tree, beating out a path strewn with fresh-cut lalangs and forlorn tendrils. Slight cuts inflicted by the lalangs were taken in full stride even though they spiked, what with his sweat. Close by, closer than he had ever come before, the forked branch appeared somewhat higher than he had reckoned. Undaunted, he began to nail the 6-inch planks one by one to form a fastened stairway. Tommy then crouched at the start of the fork. Asserting his right foot on the highest step and with his left thigh leaning on the tree stem, Tommy went on to hammer two long nails on each end of the first of his 3-feet planks. The flooring of his tree-house became extended by the by, sloping upward gradually. When the flooring was completed, he chucked the hammer down.

 

He stretched himself out and rested on the flooring with both hands over his head so as to grip the topmost edge. Tommy, with the setting sun behind him, savoured the rustling foliage and absorbed the streams of air, which were considerably cooler now. His tree-house dipped and rose, and swayed left-and-right, obligingly, according to the delight of the wind. At snippets of time, Tommy rocked and rolled rambunctiously when the wind broke free. The branch held firm.

 

At rest, still, Tommy noticed a flight of herons, which had perched onto the bare, top branches of three trees a short distance in front of his. Eventually, the winged creatures took flight again, leaving him to the usual rhapsody of foliage in motion until another visitor --  a chirpy and relatively small bird, landed on a branch higher up from the tree-house. He could not quite make out what kind of bird it was. But, it sure was restless and tireless, hopping all over at the top few branches. Tommy’s interest grew.

 

Back at home Tommy roped in his Dad to make a catapult. His Dad cut out two strips of black rubber from an inner tyre tube and cut off the tongue of a brown leather shoe, which they had rummaged from the garden shed. He re-sized the tongue into a rectangular wedge and incised a slit on each of its shorter ends for inserting the elastic rubber strips. A short portion of the rubber was allowed to come round the slit and tied with rubber band tightly. The other ends of the rubber were then fastened to the top stems of a trimmed Y-shaped branch that he had chopped off from the guava tree in their backyard. His Dad tested the elasticity of the rubber strips by pulling on the wedge of leather backward. The tension was strong. He pulled a few more times to season it a bit before passing it to Tommy. With a few pebbles on hand, Tommy tried out some shots to test his dream device. It was perfect.

 

At dinnertime, both Tommy and his Dad received a scowl for making the “violent” device. Tommy’s mother said that the daddy-bird or mommy-bird has to take flight daily to hunt for food and bring them back to feed their young offspring; much like human daddies and mommies going out to work and bringing back the ham and cheese, so to speak. “So, whatever you do, Tommy dearest, please don’t kill some birds or knock off their nests. It would be a cruel thing to do. Remember that.”

 

Tommy reeled from his mother’s scolding right up to the start of another weekend. During the week, his classmate, Dave, had regaled him with the shooting down of a bird while it was in mid-flight. He forgot to ask Dave on what was done to the wounded bird. Pluck out its feathers and cook it? Leave it to die or to be eaten by predators? Tommy wasn’t sure.

 

As he sat in his tree-house, Tommy was still trying to figure out what he could do with a shot-down bird. He thought harder still and grimaced at the thought that, as with fruits and fish, not all birds may be safe for consumption after all. The closest able-to-really-fly fowl he had eaten were boiled pigeons; never fried. But, then they were hanged to death and un-bloodied. Herons were probably not meant for human consumption. Crows were fare game. He remembered his Dad showing him an article from the local newspaper, which had featured a recipe for baking a crow pie.

 

But, he found it hard to resist the urge to use a catapult just like any of his boy friends would. The girls don’t and won’t get it. 

 

There appeared now a small, chirpy bird clambering in the branches above him. Holding the catapult on his left hand, he lodged a white pebble into the leather and began to pull the rubber far back. He took aim at the bird and came to the brink of unleashing a shot. He held back. ‘My aim is no good.’ ‘On the other hand, if not now, when?’ So, he raised his arm again and took aim. And, released his shot.

 

At long last, he DID shoot at a bird -- with three-quarter strength; three o’ clock away from the bird. A gush of warmth rushed to fill his chest and rose to his forehead. That was it. The moment that had so fixated his mind for days on end. Thereupon, Tommy decided that he should let nature run its own course and he with his. He will keep the catapult though in his desk-drawer for keep’s sake.

 

Etched in his mind were the words: “Tommy was here.” No, he will not be chiselling those words onto the tree trunk.   

*** THE END ***