MYSTober 2024

31 vignettes based on single-word prompts. One story.

16. Balance

Brandon sat on the edge of the chasm watching Jenny balance on the tree bridge.

"It's all in the arms," she called out, holding hers out to the side and tilting them as she teetered.

It had been almost a hundred days since the scar in the earth had appeared. A lot of adults had come to look at it, and he'd heard that some had even climbed down into it, but nobody had been able to explain its sudden appearance. They'd decided it had something to do with the rumble that day, and that was as far as anyone had gotten.

Brandon and his friends had had a different idea. Rather than studying it, they'd found a tree tall enough to span its width, and cut it down. They'd had the forethought to make sure it would fall across the gap, since they knew four teenagers wouldn't be able to move anything that big, and now it was a bridge from one side of the fissure to the other. With branches. They'd gotten in trouble for doing it, but none of the adults had been able to move it either, so now it was a fixture of the island.

Jenny was almost twenty foot-lengths out now. The full distance across was at least a couple hundred, but the furthest anyone had gone so far was Roger, who'd made it thirty before turning back. Mordecai refused to go out over the air because he was afraid of falling. Brandon's best was about eighteen. The new girl in their group, Elaine, hadn't tried yet.

"Come on, you're almost there!" called out Roger.

As she inched further out, Jenny sang, "Oh, for the trees, who whistle in the breeze..." A short while stretched to a long one, and then Jenny stopped and turned around with her arms up. "Thirty-three!" She bent over and tore off a piece of bark to mark her progress, and everyone clapped as she made her way back. When she'd returned to solid land, she took Elaine's hand and told her, "It's as easy as that!"

"I don't know if I'm ready, it looks really scary."

Brandon took his moment. "It is scary, but that's what makes it fun. Here, I'll go next." He lifted one foot up onto the fallen tree and tried rolling it. It didn't budge. "See? It's not going anywhere, so all you need to do is balance." Then he stepped his other leg up and took a deep breath. Elaine was really cute. He'd been searching for a way to get her interested in talking to him for ages. This was his chance. He let out his breath and started carefully walking forward.

The first ten feet were easy. Land was still close at hand (at foot?) so there wasn't much risk. Ten wasn't going to impress Elaine, though. If he wanted her attention, he had to make a statement. He wasn't turning around until he reached the second branch that stuck out at thirty-five.

MYSTober 2024

Table of Contents

16. Balance