By Marina Campoy-LoVasco (’23)

The sun beats down on the Earth with its bright rays. The dirt between her toes and beneath her feet is warm. A wind whistles through the trees and plays with the girl’s loose strands of hair. Small choruses of chirps and barks erupt from the brush and sing a sweet melody. Her ears perk at the song and she wanders towards the trees. 

Leaves crunch beneath her feet and the air is heavy with water. Branches curl and twist in order to catch a glimpse of the girl. Her hair is an acorn brown with streaks of fire red. Her lips are delicate like rose petals and her eyes are a piercing green. Her hands dangle at her sides and she walks with her shoulders relaxed. 

There is a tree in the forest with gnarled roots and forever-reaching branches. It is here at this tree that the girl stops walking. She sits down in the cavity of the tree’s chest. The ants and spiders who were shuffling about there quickly scurry away. The tree acts as a throne and a broken branch soon becomes a mighty scepter.

The girl attempts to lean backwards against the rough bark of the tree, but there is nothing there. She leans back into empty space and begins to fall. She falls for a long time, for how long, no one is quite sure. All the girl can see are streaks of colors as the wind brushes her face. Finally, the girl reaches some sort of solid ground. She has passed out from the fall and is black and blue with bruises. The girl’s leg is bent awkwardly behind her back and her arms are sprawled out in surrender.

When she at last wakes, she lays on the ground for some time looking up at that speck of light so far away. Where on Earth could she possibly be? Was she even on Earth anymore? Oh, and how was she alive? Now don’t think she wasn’t happy to have a heartbeat and all that, but there was no real logic behind her being alive, and she was a girl of logic. 

The girl manages to get herself out of that rather uncomfortable position and lifts herself from the ground. Looking around, the girl does not see the glamourous yellow brick road she had expected. In fact, the land is quite barren and she could have sworn she saw a tumbleweed blowing around in the distance.
“Ahhhhh,” the girl’s chest echoes the noise. It surprises her how great it felt to yell, and so she carries on yelling for about five minutes as she walks aimlessly. 

“Lordy-lou! Stop your yelling kid! I’ve been here solving the answers of the universe for some million years now and I’ve never heard someone yell like you,” the girl looks around shocked. No one else is there besides her and the tumbleweed. Was the tumbleweed speaking to her? The girl runs to the tumbleweed and begins to whisper words into its, well not ears, but something along those lines. How quickly her logic has been flung out the door!

“No sweety, I am not the tumbleweed. You look so very silly whispering to that dead bush. Look down at your shoes!” the girl nearly trips over her own feet as she scrambles about, eyeing the ground as if it will swallow her whole. There is a yelp and the girl nearly jumps out of her skin as she steps backwards.

“Gotcha! Oh dear, did I frighten you? It’s just, I haven’t had company for such a long time and I barely know how to act!”

“I-I thought you knew all the answers in the universe.”

“No honey, emphasis on solving the answers of the universe. So far my main achievements have been how to make fire and put corn into everything. I still have no idea what the proper way to eat an Oreo is and whether Ross and Rachel were really on a break!”

“Do you at least know where we are? Or, at the very least, where you are?” the girl’s breath quickens in anticipation.

“Well…”

TO BE CONTINUED