Quinquagesimus Secundus Gradus

Mattie placed her hand on the red maple’s sturdy trunk. The tree marked the far edge of her father’s cornfield, which swayed gently behind her. The sky was vast and warm and gray. The girl traced a winding split in the bark of the tree. A gentle breeze shook the leaves above. Their rustling soothed her. She pressed her palm against the gray bark. The tree was cool and smooth, reminding her of a window pane on a November morning. The breeze withdrew; the leaves settled. Mattie let her hand slip off the trunk as she regarded them. She expected vivid purples and bright streaks of red among the leaves. Instead, she found the leaves to be colored much like the bark. The cornstalks, likewise, were a muted array of green and yellow, lacking the lustrous emerald and gold hues they had boasted yesterday. Mattie pulled her leather jacket tighter against her wool bodice. Though unsurprised by the dampened colors, the sight of them made her cold.

A twig snapped on the other side of the tree.

Curious, Mattie cocked an eyebrow. She held the maple for support and peeked around the trunk. Wandering through the brush was a little girl. Mattie noticed her pale eyes first. Then she noticed her unbrushed, black hair.

“Hello, little miss,” Mattie said. She stepped out from behind the tree.

“Oh, hi,” the little girl replied. “I like your dress.”

“Why, thank you,” Mattie decided not to correct the girl, for in truth she was wearing a skirt in addition to her bodice. She curtsied. “It’s my finest outfit.” Mattie studied the little girl for a moment longer, noting her torn jeans. “I wish I could say the same for you, but I see you’ve chosen against a dress today.”

“Yeah, I don’t own any pretty dresses. Just some shorts and jeans and stuff,” she shrugged.

“Shorts?”

“Yeah, like the pants I’ve got on, but—” she bent over and tapped her thigh with her hand “—they end about here. They’re a lot cooler than pants. I usually only wear them in summer, though.”

Mattie raised both eyebrows. “Oh! My mother would have a fit if she saw me or any of my friends in ‘shorts.’”

“Friend?” The little girl smiled. “I’m Saylor.” She stuck out her arm, closing the distance between them. Mattie took her hand. Saylor shook it. Her grip carried an unexpected strength, at which Mattie laughed. “What’s so funny?”

“I don’t intend to insult you, only to answer you truthfully. You are a most peculiar girl,” Mattie spoke the words with as much gentleness as her condition would afford.

Saylor scrunched her nose and sniffed. “You think I’m weird. Most people think so. I think you talk funny. Want to swing?” The girl scurried past Mattie and plopped herself onto a swing. The seat was hanging from a sturdy branch of the maple tree. It hadn’t been there a moment before.

“I would like to swing with you, Saylor,” Mattie said. Mattie rested her hands on Saylor’s shoulders, giving them a gentle push. The younger girl wished for a higher swing, so Mattie gave her a harder push. Still, Saylor was unsatisfied.

Mattie huffed, regretting such taxing play in such fine attire. Yet, she relented. She readied herself, then pushed as she ducked… trotted… out from under!

Saylor yelped with glee as the swing rushed backwards. Mattie stumbled into the grass—which was grayish—and skidded to a stop, cackling. Saylor laughed with her. After a moment, having worked into a comfortable rhythm of pumping her legs to maintain the swing, Saylor asked if Mattie was alright. Mattie stood and brushed herself off, still giggling. She looked for a stain on her skirt, but there was none to be found.

Relaxing from the excitement, Mattie began an inquiry. Finding strangely-dressed little girls in the woods behind the cornfield was not a common experience for a farm girl miles from the nearest neighbor. Saylor giggled, then reported that she had lived a few blocks away. When Mattie revealed her unfamiliarity with the term “block,” Saylor giggled again.

The younger girl gestured over her shoulder, still swinging. She pointed out the row of houses. Mattie turned her attention to the brush beyond the maple tree. Indeed, there was a row of buildings! Gray buildings, and very alien buildings, but buildings nonetheless. Mattie’s eyes widened. She folded her hands, rubbing them together.

Saylor continued explaining. The maple tree stood at the end of Maple Street, and a block down was the next street. She reiterated to Mattie that this constituted a block, and she had lived several blocks away.

Mattie stared at the street. It was so smooth! Running alongside it was a slimmer, whiter street. Mattie asked about the little street. Saylor giggled. She explained that it was a sidewalk. It was like a road, but for people, dogs, and deer. This raised another slew of questions. Saylor laughed with each new question, but she was patient as she taught her friend.

The girls spoke without ceasing. Saylor was a girl packed with curiosities, and Mattie had time to explore them all. She became enthralled by the depth of Saylor’s knowledge about the world. Mattie wasn’t a stupid girl, but speaking to Saylor made her realize that she was simple.

Eventually, it was Saylor’s turn to investigate. It was Mattie’s turn to giggle. Saylor was intrigued by Mattie’s daily chores on the farm. The little girl pried for every detail about every routine, treating each like an earth-shattering discovery. Meanwhile, Mattie chuckled, answered earnestly. Over the time of their mutual inquiry and discourse, the sun and temperature fell. For Saylor, the world grew oranger and cooler. Mattie didn’t notice.

Saylor asked Mattie about school. Mattie shrugged, stating that the closest school was a few counties away. (Counties are like blocks, but for giant empty spaces of land.) Saylor rebutted, pointing down Maple Street and declaring that the school she used to go to was just a few blocks—not counties—that way. When Mattie squinted, she thought she could see a brick building in the distance. It looked much different from the houses across the road. 

Mattie asked Saylor what she meant by “used to live,” and “used to go.” Mattie thought it strange that a school-aged girl like Saylor would no longer attend a school she lives so close to, or no longer live in the place she just seemingly walked from. Saylor stopped pumping her legs. She turned away from Mattie, eyes down. Mattie stared at her. When Saylor noticed, she flashed a heartless little grin and looked away again. Mattie shuffled herself in front of the swing. Saylor avoided making eye contact, but Mattie won out.

“Don’t smile,” she teased the younger girl. Saylor’s resolve was steady. She didn’t. So, Mattie made a horrific face, pulling her one cheek down and smushing the other up, widening and crossing her eyes, and repeated “don’t smile” in a silly voice. Saylor bursted out laughing.

She hopped off of the swing, called Mattie silly, and asked why a girl was hanging out in a cemetery all alone, anyway. Mattie’s face was the one to droop this time. “What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do you mean’? Look! You’re hanging out in a cemetery all alone.” Saylor pointed over Mattie’s shoulder. Mattie’s eyes followed the arm. Indeed, Saylor’s finger was aimed at a cluster of gravestones. They stood strong and gray, lined up in neat rows within a sea of short grass. A white picket fence rimmed the expanse. In a melancholy way, Mattie thought, the cemetery was quite pretty. 

“I suppose you’re right,” Mattie whispered. She regarded the field beyond the fence. No longer her father’s cornfield, the crop that wavered in the wind appeared to be wheat. “Well, I could ask you the same thing. You didn’t know I was here, yet you came.”

“But I wasn’t going to stop until I saw you. You seemed lonely.”

Mattie turned back to her friend, smiling. “That’s awfully sweet of you. To answer your question, I felt ill this morning. I reckoned that clean air would do me well.”

Saylor giggled. “You don’t seem sick to me. Never did. I guess the clean air cured you.”

“Yes, I suppose it did.”

Saylor shivered. “I’m really glad you’re better. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think I’m glad you were sick this morning. Otherwise, I don’t think I would’ve met you.”

Mattie considered this for a moment. “Saylor, is it time for you to go home?”

“I—,” Saylor hesitated. She looked away from Mattie again, staring at a gravestone.

“Saylor,” Mattie repeated, noticing Saylor shiver. “It’s gotten cold, hasn’t it? A smart girl like you needs rest to keep up with her studies. I ought to be going, as well.”

“Okay,” Saylor whispered. “Okay, I’ll go home.” Saylor hugged Mattie, warming her and squeezing her tight. “I’ll see you soon, right?”

“I don’t know, dear,” Mattie surprised herself with ‘dear,’ adopting the word and tonality from her mother. She regretted the phrase. “I hope so,” she squeezed Saylor tighter. In a strange way, she found that she didn’t believe herself.

Letting go, Mattie saw that Saylor had wet cheeks. Mattie wiped them dry and smiled.

With a final round of farewells, their hands slipped away from each other. Saylor departed down the street. Mattie watched her, leaning against the maple tree, until Saylor became a silhouette. The distant shadow stopped to wave one more time. Mattie shot her hand up and waved back. Turning onto a new block, Saylor disappeared behind a house.

Mattie stared at the corner for a moment. The manicured trees and strange building darkened as the sun continued to sink. Sighing, Mattie turned, facing the cemetery and the sunset. The wheat field lay beyond it, long shadows now drawn across the gray crops. She patted the maple tree one last time. 

She glimpsed a simple, dark gravestone webbed with cracks. Mattie read the epitaph. Her lips couldn’t decide between a frown or a smile, the muscles dancing in a moment of uncertainty. She turned away from the marker. Her steps through the cemetery were slow. The sun stopped, a sliver of it lingering on the fringe of the horizon. It was dull and hazy, colorless. Mattie continued toward it, passing rows of gravestones. Some plots were thick with healthy, swaying blades, while others were pale with matted grass. There was no correlation between the grass and the grandiosity of the marker. Mattie considered the cemetery, finding a curious beauty in the glum memorial.

Mattie reached the white fence. She crawled over it, careful not to snag her skirt on the wood. She covered a strip of short grass, then pushed aside tall stalks of wheat. She felt the grain skate across her skin as she wandered through the field. She closed her eyes, slowing her steps, arms outstretched.

Her wrist collided with something firm. She opened her eyes to find a corn stalk in her way. It was gray-green. She chuckled. There were more ahead, woven into the wheat. She walked onwards, taking in the faint smell of fresh corn.

As the corn stalks grew thicker and thicker, mingling with rows of wheat, Mattie laughed more and more, with growing glee. The stalks began to revivify in color, casting off the dull gray that choked their vibrancy. The sky grew purplish, orange clouds shining above.

Mattie continued deeper into her father’s cornfield. The stalks were the healthiest she’d ever seen, colored like a fine emerald ring. She paused to take a head of corn. Shucking it revealed golden maize that shone in the evening light. Mattie felt tears well in her eyes. Looking towards the horizon, she saw the sun rising from the west, as if time were rewinding. The vignette of dusk lifted as the sun rose, casting radiant beams of amber and violet that painted the cornfield. Warmth kissed her face. She turned around, scanning for the red maple. There it stood, in the distance, guarding the cornfield. It was aglow. Maroon streaks of light painted the brush behind it, the leaves filtering the sunlight in a way Mattie had never witnessed before.

Mattie’s laugh faltered, peppered by sob-like gasps as her eyes processed the vivid panorama of the new dusk. A friendly, paternal warmth embraced her. With it, tranquility washed her heart and mind. The tears dried from her face. She breathed a deep, steady breath. A new breath of life.