The Tall Tale of Bubs and Beepah (Part II)

Bubs was ready. He knew he had to be a little nervous, but mostly he knew it didn’t matter. His turn now, he went through some easy juggling first, then pulled out some of his better tricks. He threw one from beneath his leg; he picked one up with his foot and threw it into a pattern. The easily entertained group was impressed, but Bubs wouldn’t know that for a while yet. Beepah sat on her sister’s lap, and she loved watching him. She was impressed, but she felt something deeper than that. She longed for him, but she thought he had never considered her and never would. She hoped with all of her being, but always present was that whisper of impossibility that dampened her excitement.

She saw him here and there, sparingly. A few times she watched him from the window. Once he tripped but caught himself before he hit the ground. In that moment, Bubs felt watched, but he couldn’t see her inside the house. He continued on his route, not knowing but always having felt a presence. He didn’t think about her much for a while, and for a little she had stopped thinking about him. It seemed their lives would never again interlock, for any reason. Beepah never forget him in her actions, but he no longer lived in her present mind. The electricity in Bubs seemed to have died. Much in him was dead.

He slipped, he slid, he flew along the raucous ravine, plunging further into the shadowy crack. She felt as if she was doing the same, although at a slower rate. She cried heavenward, pleading for respite from her disease of loneliness. His disease had overtaken him, so that he could no longer justify pleading for release. She sought new life; he attempted a different sort of relief. Through their turbulence, someone was watching, while knowing the exact moment when to uncover the truth. The truth that Beepah longed for and Bubs needed. It was the truth that both of them secretly (secret even to themselves) wanted, but neither of them expected or could have predicted. If that which they could see was amazing, that which they could not have foreseen was unimaginable in every inspiring way.

He saw Beepah once, coincidentally. She had grown, as had he, but now his view had changed. She was no longer a mere spark inside his spirit, but a wick set aflame. He concentrated on his actions while she stood there watching him periodically. A kickflip would have been nice at the moment, but he settled for an ollie. He inquired of his brain to produce any productive thought that would give him cause to address her. Flies in his room and a stick with a nail were no longer valid conversational topics for his age. Nothing came to Bubs’s mind, and Beepah would not talk to him first. The time passed with no interaction between them. However, the wick had been lit, and ideas came into Bubs’s mind like autumn leaves wind-blown through an open door.