From this height he could always see impending storms, and at some times of the year there are plenty of storms. He would be prepared, always. He has learned a lot from his parents, whom he still misses and the only photos in his possession are of them. Before their simultaneous accident they had always warned him not to descend to the darkness below, that often, as was their ultimate fate, the darkness would suck you in, anyway. He is not so afraid of storms that would conspire with the darkness below to bring him down. He has learned a lot to know how to prepare for the storms.
He sells fruits that he gathers from all over the canopy. His schedule is very rigorously followed in order to survive. In the morning, he checks the horizon. This time of the year there are hardly any storms, but it also means the area is very dry, and the heat can become unbearable by noon. And so he has to start early. Nevertheless, a rare storm does come; when he was a little child, a toddler on the branches, so to speak, he witnessed an unexpected summer storm that nearly blew him off into the darkness below. His parents saved them and thanked God for it. So he checks the horizon where the ocean unveils the sun every morning. There are clouds, but not the kinds that would herald a violent storm, especially not the type of clouds that would appear in a rare summer storm. he checks his watch. He will spend the next two to three hours looking for fruits and also building materials to reinforce his treehouse. Summer is a good time to mend the houses. He could have hired someone to do it, but he isn't wealthy enough. He has only saved a few silver coins, not even a gold one yet. Besides, his savings isn't for repairs or other work that he can do himself. He does a lot on his own. He even repairs the blender he needs to make smoothies he makes from coconut base. He also has to upkeep his cistern, especially now when water is so scarce. The trouble with summer is that it is easy for things to grow where there's water, such as germs and algae, nasty things you can drink. He has his own filtering system, a bunch of rocks in a tube that he installs in the pipes leading from the cistern, but those rocks he has to replace every month or two, and they are hard to find on the cliffs in the center of the island. He usually goes with his neighbor and they help each other out.
Today is not for the rocks, just the fruits and building material. His business is getting better, though it usually is pretty good in the summers when people are thirsty and want something more than just water to cool themselves down. He goes out with his pole and machete. There are hanging bridges that connect the major boughs of the canopy. They haven't needed repairs as there haven't been any storms lately, but he still has to be careful. A bad bridge can be a one-way ticket to the darkness below.
He passes by other treehouses. There aren't many; in fact this close community doesn't have a lot of people. The experts think the low number of children produced each year owes less to people's desire to make them and more to whatever nutrients are lacking. Then again, by "experts" we mean a family of scientists whose background is in physics. But still, at least they understand some stuff in those science textbooks in the school. People aren't really complaining. Why make so many people in a close community that can barely support all the current mouths? He passes through a dark canopy of silence. The birds have just started chirping, quietly, by the time he reaches his first grove of mangoes. People like mangoes but they are hesitant to eat a lot. It makes their stomachs feel funny. Still, they make for good shakes. In this dim light, he can see very well which mangoes are ripe and which aren't.
Then he hears a sound. He is on alert. His biggest fear here is snakes, though the greater threat in a different grove is leopards, but they aren't a threat unless they are very hungry. But snakes are very easily freaked out and will strike at whatever warmth they feel represents threat. He holds very still and surveys the surrounding. He locates the sound and sees a shape emerging. They are near the edge of the grove where a big rock sticks out, and the other person apparently descended from the rock. The shadow sees him and slowly approaches him. It's obviously not some animal, but another human being. She smiles at him and he is puzzled. He recognizes that they are of the same kind of people, but she dresses differently. She looks down at his left hand and sees his watch and asks, "You have a watch? Battery powered?"
Her accent sounds very strange, and he could hardly understand her. He shakes his head and says, "Not really. It recharges itself by the movement."
She comes closer and he realizes she smells like a special kind of flower, which he knows is called perfume because that's what the books have taught him that people, especially women, used to wear and for what purpose. Her face looks nothing strange, and if she were to wear her hair like women here do, and clothes made from the tree-born materials, she wouldn't stand out, except that, something about her, maybe exactly her difference, or her perfume, or something about the way she's looking at him with so much wonder, that makes her such an amazing human being to look at.
She examines his pole and machete with her eyes and smiles more. She comes a little closer, and her perfume becomes more complicated for his nose. And as the entire sun rises above with a big yawn of light, he could see her features more. She is in her late twenties, at least according to what he's used to seeing in the women around here. She has blue eyes and red hair, which is a combination he has never seen before. He said, feeling rather bold, "You have red hair, but your skin is not pale white." She bursts into laughter, which confounds him a little and causes him to blush. "Sorry. I never had that comment about me before. It's cute," she says, "I dyed my hair red. It's normally dirty blond." He has read about dying hair, and he knows that older women here dye their hair completely black to make themselves look younger, using a dye from this flower that one of his distant neighbors slave every week to extract, lost a son to the darkness below a few years ago for that. He thought it is odd but somehow sensible to dye your hair any way you want.
"You're not from here. I know everyone on the island, but you are from somewhere else," he says it with some dismay. People don't fall off the sky so she might be from below. His grip on the pole tightens a little. And when she takes a step closer, he moves his body a bit back, gripping the handle of the machete a little too. She notices it, and respects his space by desisting her approach. "It's all right. I am not from below." The radiant reflection of the sun in her eyes disarms him a little. At the same time, there is something he's feeling that is wrapped in fear. His heart is racing out of this feeling as well as the fear of this feeling. His grip is relaxed without his knowing hit. Her eyes have ensnared him.
"My name is Sandra," she says, seeing his change of gesture, and extends her hand. He takes it, and that feeling suddenly explodes to nearly uncontainable level when he feels how soft her right hand is. He doesn't let it go, but she doesn't find it strange. They are just there, holding hands while the bodies are at a distance, like a photograph of dignitaries from reconciling nations.
He finally lets her hand go, at which point she smiles more. "Your name?"
"David," he says.
"Nice to meet you," she says.
"You are beautiful, Sandra," he says, with a mouth that is no longer guided by his mind or his fears, but that feeling he only felt once.
"Thank you, you ain't so shabby yourself, David," she says, giggling. He doesn't know what "shabby" means, but he is more relaxed now, giggling a little himself.
He puts his pole down, keeps his machete on, and from nowhere it seems he produces a bench made from a nearby log and some dry leaves that she hadn't noticed before. The leaves weren't just some random leaf, but it's obvious that they are picked to produce maximum cushioning. He lets her sit first and then sits down, with a respective distance.
To be continued....
