The Catch

We were playing hide-&-seek. At the last moment, I dove under a black rubberized tarp that had been lying out back for several months. I heard her finish the count & come looking, rounding the corner of the house on rapid feet.

The tarp rustled from my heavy breathing. A beetle made a racket burrowing out from under from my right ear, which was pressed against the ground. She ran past, the beetle wiggled free & everything grew still.

After a while, I heard the approach of slow footfalls. This time, I held my breath as if my life depended on it. The steps came up to the edge of the tarp & stopped. “Nobody under there,” I heard her say.

Is it better to fish without luck, or to stretch a net & accept the inevitable by-catch? The silence after that second attempt has yet to end. From time to time, a harvestman runs over my carcass on seeing-eye legs. What mountain is this, I start to wonder, keeping the smooth sky from a tangled earth?