Inch By Inch (Part 2)

As he crawled through the mushrooms and the mini-ants, closing in on the place where the trees thinned out and finally opened up into his mowed-ish backyard, he thought about how the search parties had practically stared straight at him. Point blank. Even tossed the butt of an illegally park-smoked Marlboro into his dark place between the boulders. It bounced twice, the second time off the bowl of his ear. He could swear those trollish men had seen him twitching, but they must have thought he was a raccoon having a seizure because he kinda remembered the fatter guy making weird animal noises when walking away. Thinking of this, Linus wondered: Why didn’t I cry out for help? Maybe I was too squeezed and couldn’t generate enough airpower for screaming. Or maybe the whole thing was one big hallucination caused by no food? Either way the dopes didn’t rescue him. They exhaled smoke and walked away.

Then finally one day it had rained just a little. He’d kept his mouth open and let the rain just fill up his mouth hole like when you pour water into a hole you dug in the dirt to be a cricket bath. And, water-strong, with all of his salamander-kid-might, he wriggled out from the rock and over two days and nights squirmed through the woods all the way back.

Now, finally, he plumped into his parents’ (his) backyard.

Nice achievement. But maybe too late. His squirm-reserves were seriously in the red…

Check out Part 3.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5