Company

By A. O. Wallat

Gordon sauntered along the giant green bamboo that he had decided was his favourite viewing spot. The landscape never changed from other vantages but at ninth hour the light from where he now stood streaked through the canopy turning the dull wooden city into the many shades of sunset.

Although the cityscape reflected reds and yellows quite cheerfully he didn’t feel the same. Sad wasn’t exactly what he felt because he never felt it like this before. The wooden folk were always too busy to think or even worse talk about feelings.

Gordon sat down with a clunk. The giant bamboo had no backrest, and he had clearly forgotten about that. His wooden frame tumbled backwards from the canopy end after end, clonk after clunk, and with a dull thud he hit the floor. His bark was split, his head was cracked. Little pieces of splinter embedded the soil and all manner of sap was dripping onto his head.

Gordon woke in pain. Wincing, he crawled towards the nearest tree as though an anchor weighed him down. He had no memory of the moments just passed and looked down in search of the missing time.

Fear trickled down into the pit of his stomach.

Two standard log lengths before him was another body slumped in the same way he was. It looked just as broken as he did. In fact he looked exactly the same. Bathed in an orange glow, the two Gordons sat facing each other. He wasn’t sure if he was dead. But when Gordon tried to leave –

“Don’t go,” it said.

Its frame hadn’t moved, its eyes didn’t move but it had definitely spoken.

The shadows turned from orange to red. Gordon had managed to sit upright. While he rested, the sap in his cracks and breaks hardened and slowly healed. He looked at his double. The corners of its mouth were turned down. Gordon spoke without thinking.

“Come on. Let’s get home.”