To write, is it right? What will I write? Will it be great or will it just be a collection of words that beg for comprehension, words that perhaps I understand, the rhythm and the meaning behind the placement of words, but that others would not be able to decipher. A poet is what I wish to be, some day a philosopher. A storyteller and a scholar. What job pays for that? Teacher maybe. Writer? So a short story I will tell, a story that I will make up on the spot because I did not know until just a minuet ago that I would be telling a tale. A tale then of grass.
Not the wild, green grass that grows all around, all around. No, I will tell a tale of the “short blade”.
And so it was that I was born of the earth and the water, I was but 12 weeks old when I stuck my head out of the soil and oh! It was bright!!! I had only been breathing the sun for a few short minuets when the sound started. “kutcha…tssss…. Tchk, tchk, tchk, chhh, tch-tch-tch, tchk, tchk, tchk,etc.” and then the rain! Wonderful water coming from the sky!! Oh thank the gods!!! 4 days later I was tall and strong and alive! Oh the life I felt, I was taller than all my neighbors, I could see forever and it was glorious. “You’ll learn” said the old-timers, “You’ll see and then you wont be so arrogant.” They were all jealous of my height, my strength. I sneered at them, let them hate, I was the best and I knew it. Soon I was taking all their sunlight and drinking their water. They grumbled louder, they tried to stop me. I laughed, Ha!! It was my time!!! Their days were over and they knew it!!! “You’ll see”, they muttered,“You’ll learn. We all did.” I was 2 weeks old when it happened. “Brddrum-brddrum-brum,bumbumbababa…. Brrrrrrrmmmmm.” The sound was deafening! It didn’t stop; it only got louder than quieter, coming closer then moving away. Soon it just got louder. I could see it now. I can’t describe it; that hideous, monstrous red whirlwind of death. I could hear the shouts and screams of those being sucked in. I could hear the laughter of the old ones before their glee turned to anguish. “Now it’ll see! Now it’ll learn. HA HA HAAAAAAHHH…” It was horrible but what happened next was worse. The monstrosity kept coming, I tried to duck to bend down but I couldn’t I was TOO tall, TOO strong. It took me. I couldn’t feel anything after, I couldn’t see or hear, I couldn’t taste the sun or drink the rain, I was dead. 3 days latter I could see again, the sun made its way into me and I started drinking again. I had survived. The old timers told me of the beast after, they told me that everyone got cut every-time. They told of how the tallest normally never came back. They explained how there were always new bodies to fill the gaps. Nobody lived long here they said and then chuckled and welcomed me to the crowd. A day after that a new sprout crept up, shouting in its arrogance it stole my sunshine and drank my water and I let it. I did not grumble, I did not warn, I fed and nurtured it and when the monster came it took it completely. I did the same to the next and the next and the next. Now I am 2 years old, the oldest one, the only one who knows. I do not warn and I do not grumble, I let them grow. I let them die. I am the short blade. I am the survivor.
