No. Not quite right. Try again.
“Leouf!”
Again.
“Leeef!”
Close.
“Leaf!”
There it was.
“Leaf,” he said. “This is a leaf.”
The ease with which the rest of the words came back to him was startling. He looked around and named everything he could see. Rock. Bird. Wind. Sun. Hand. Cloud. Finger. Foot. Fly. Spider. Web. Then the bad thoughts crept in. Blood. Tear. Rip. Eat. Break. Gut. No! He focused, tried to stop the anger, the visions, the nightmares. He pushed it down, subdued it, built a dam to hold it back and, miraculously, it worked. For the moment. He hoped it wouldn’t burst.
Calm now, he splashed back across the wet stuff (water?) and sat on the rock, beaming. The world had meaning again. He loved the sound of the creek (it was a creek!), the water rushing at his feet, the be
