village days and sleepy nights

[Pete]

1
"There's a village down there. A village which hesitates to invade our needs."
The ensuing silence featured lightly. The ferns were unobtrusive in their daily practice of catching breezes and generating ventilation. The afternoon's humidity would have been an adventure itself but this clearing provided the necessary solitude and defence.
Chivers interrupted the silence but retained the clearing.
"Is this what we talked about yesterday?" he enquired.
Leaman thought whether to duplicate his utterance. He couldn't imagine a translation so took the safe route and presented the very same words in their original order.
"There's a village down there. A village that hesitates to invade our needs."
"You said 'that'." Chivers was speedy with his retort.
"I said what?"
"You said 'that' and originally you said 'which'."
"Does it matter? Does it alter the perception?"
"I guess not," Chivers conceded.
"Then my statement remains solid and as true as it has been this long summer," Leaman proudly offered.
The clearing was their solitude. It had been theirs all summer. They had watched the ferns grow through the August weeks without noticing any incremental change. The village couldn't be seen from ground level. It was an altitude that gave great secrecy and security. This outlook enabled much thought and philosophy but their needs were invisible to those beyond the bracken and above the uppermost tendrils. Leaman and Chivers looked up to the skies, their adolescent bodies lying parallel to the vapour trails of unseen planes.
"Should I look over the parapet to welcome the invasion?" Chivers asked with false anticipation.
The ferns had not quite reached full maturity and Chivers could easily see over. Last year he had to stand on tiptoe.
"These ferns haven't grown as high this year," he estimated.
Leaman couldn't decide if this was a verbal trap to test his own natural relativity. He decided not to go down that avenue.
"Any girls?" Leaman remained horizontal so as not to tempt fate.
"Only in my dreams," Chivers replied.
"They are my dreams as well, Chivers. We agreed."
Chivers knew this well. This is what they had talked about all summer. The sharing of aspirations, hope and sexual release had become their art form and in this clearing they were capable of anything.
"Where are they?" Leaman's rhetorical whisper was one that had taken many forms but always gave the same response.
"In our heads, Leaman. They're in our heads."
"How long will they remain in our heads?"
"As long as we're here."
The bracken formed a flat bed of tranquility. They had moulded it to their own individual shapes through the course of many visits. Designated territory had been decided without the need for negotiation. Chivers lay down again on his allotted area. The cloudless sky offered a canvas for their imaginations. Leaman and Chivers closed their eyes. The girls duly arrived.
Their respective encounters seamlessly synchronised into an outpouring of satisfaction and elation.
"I think my tea is ready," Leaman offered as a release. His girl had sated his immediate needs, effortlessly and sparingly.
"I'm having Shepherd's Pie," Chivers responded. His girl had climatically disappeared into the ferns, leaving no evidence of having ever been there. The stems remained unbroken.
Together they stood, peering over the sea of bracken , Their defences had not been breached. Their imaginations remained intact and ready for further episodes. Sometimes Leaman secretly hoped that his girl had found him wanting but he knew that this would not happen, their tracks were well planned and protectingly devious.
"It still looks like cuckoo spit," Chivers laughed.
"No-one can tell the difference," Leaman clarified with a hint of doubt. "Can they?"



2
Leaman valued the friendship that Chivers offered. They had progressed through school as one. They did not always share the same grades but shared the same outlook and experienced the same needs. It was the latter which dictated their path through adolescence. A path that meandered wildly and crumbled at the edges. Leaman and Chivers were adept at treading this path but sometimes suspected that there was another. This was a possibility often hypothesised.


3
'This village is our template," Leaman proclaimed. His stance was again horizontal but this time he was lying prostrate on the wooden slats of the bench.....the solitary bench on the village green. He could feel the hardness of the wood beginning to indent his buttocks. His hard, bony shoulder blades provided a leverage that should have compensated for the discomfort but somehow his growing pains had adapted wonderfully. Leaman was in his prime. A prime position coupled with his prime admissions.
Chivers had to adopt a position in a plane perpendicular to the outstretched Leaman. He had room to sit and survey all before him. Leaman's feet barely nudged Chivers' thighs. As long as the mud was dry this was not a concern. It was as if Chivers was the lookout whilst Leaman contented in searching the skies for solutions and opportunities.
"A template of persuasion and deviance."
"What about our bracken?" Chivers asked.
"The night rain will have cleansed our presence, We were never there."
"Until the next time, Leaman."
Leaman smiled. His fluids simmered.
"It's some sort of cycle isn't it?" Chivers profoundly added. "The rain has washed our stains and the bracken awaits our tread again."
"There are many cycles. Cycles within cycles. Sometimes the revolutions fool my eustachian and I lose my footing." Leaman compounded the discussion.
"Hormones," Chivers intercepted , this time verbally but other times emotionally. Sometimes both.
"Hormones," Leaman replicated with an authoritative sigh.
"Have they always been like this?" Chivers asked. He knew the answer but wanted to revel in any forthcoming reminiscence,
Leaman stared at the clouds. The morning had not matured, the night rain had washed the landscape and he searched for the cloud that would trigger memories. He chose a stratus. It was distant and it had direction.
"Remember Sally and Nina?"
Chivers checked the sky. Leaman glanced across at his profile. The curly hair of Chivers masqueraded as tendrils and Sally and Nina slowly appeared.
"Didn't we remember them last week?"
Leaman grinned. There was no harm in regular resurrections. "We eat easter eggs, don't we?"
Chivers strayed momentarily onto the crumbly edge of the path .
"Lets remember them again," Chivers regained the middle line. The path was firm again.

4
Leaman and Chivers were both 7 years old. Mentally, they had agreed that 8 years was a better approximation due to comparative callisthenic exercises held at Sunday School. It was the summer of '60 and the sledging field was green. It still held a fascinating incline that enabled angular bodies, accentuated by short trousers and musky T-shirts, to indent the grass. Scabbed knees were shown as trophies. Grazed elbows displayed as battle scars.
"Arrrrrgggghhh," Chivers shrieked as he collapsed to the ground, shot in the chest. He rolled twice and lay motionless.
"Got yer." Leaman blew the smoke from his forefinger. "You only rolled twice," he scoffed.
Chivers slowly erected himself and offered the same target. Leaman aimed, triggered his middle finger and fired.
"AAAAAARRRRGGGGGGHHHH." A more forceful cry preceding a dramatic collapse followed by a triple roll and a final muscular spasm, encompassing the whole body.
Leaman blew the smoke from his finger. His squint was nearing perfection and he counted his remaining bullets.
"Good one, Chivers."
"Are they looking yet?"
"I think they were impressed."
"I can hear laughing," Chivers whispered.
"I can hear screams of admiration." Leaman remained adamant. His hearing was as sharp as it had been at his recent hearing test.
The giggles dissipated. The stand-off was temporarily interrupted by the 3:15 bus taking elderly villagers to the border. These well-worn passengers stared briefly into the scene and, for a fleeting moment, past images emerged and distorted smiles refracted through the grimy windows.
"Are they looking?" Chivers repeated, with an urgency that equated to the sudden realisation that a small battalion of ants was stationed within close proximity.
"Crikey, I think they are," Leaman uttered through a forced grin.
Chivers quickly regained his stature. The battalion went undercover, ready to mount an offensive elsewhere.
The field was large in area and adjacent to the home of Sally and Nina who were crouched behind their perimeter hedge, stifling their giggles.
Sally and Nina were sisters. Sally was in the same class at school as the two boys and Nina, being 2 years older, was seeking to direct the next scene.
"I'll call them over before they make more a spectacle of themselves," Nina whispered.
"Are they making spectacles?" Sally naively added.
There were many occasions when Nina didn't bother explaining higher literacy skills and this was one of them. This was why she felt an affinity for her younger sister. Sally may have had longer, blonder hair but Nina liked to think that her short, darker locks gave an aura of maturity. Anyway, Nina was taller.
Sally was feeling just a little nervous.
"Why do we want them in our garden?" she whispered back.
Nina was feeling mischievous. "I think it's time to play".

5
"Did Nina really plan it all?" Chivers asked as he looked down on his life-long friend. A life that had now spanned 14 years.
Leaman did not avert his gaze from the village canopy.
" I have thought about this episode often. I am of the conclusion that Nina orchestrated our initiation."
Previous discussions on these events had resulted in varying interpretations. Chivers was willing to accept that his friend was correct in this assumption.
"We can't ask them....they left the village 6 months later."
"Why did they leave?" Leaman probed.
"We've mentally investigated this many times, my friend. At that age we guessed it was what happened next but I think our added years now lead us to realise that it couldn't have been."
"Lets remember what happened next," Leaman added as he refocused on the very same strata. He preferred strata clouds...... they were slow in adjusting.

[Nightstalker]

This got lost in the poetry contest results, metinks. I enjoyed it and it has elements of poetic prose. The hook are excellent and it makes me want to read more. I can accept it also as a finished work, aware of the face value, if that was the intent and leave the mysteries to the imagination and the analogies to others.