Short Story

They were two high school seniors walking home after the day’s final bell, and despite their polar opposite appearances they were undoubtedly longtime friends. One walked tall, face smiling, and gleeful emotion seemingly taking form and leading him through life. The other, with a subtle glare of striking indifference, looks like he just walked out of a Halloween television special.
The street snaked its way through the newly erected suburban nightmare their parents decided to make home. A wall of trees jutted up into the sky on either side of the road, casting a shadow over the near empty block. With graduation just around corner, Tom, in a minor attempt to fill the air with idle conversation, asks, “So John, what’s your plan after you make it out of this.”
In his usual chipper manor, John begins explaining that he has always wanted to become a firefighter, but his Dad has always told him he’s too smart to be running into burning buildings for a living. “Maybe I’ll become an engineer or someth…” John goes on, before a screech for help cuts him off. Attention is turned to cat sat atop a tree. The sun’s shadow ends at the cat’s feet leaving it illuminated on an otherwise dark canvas. “Hey, look! I think it’s stuck up there man,” he says almost excitedly.
Tom doesn’t stop for a moment and grumbles back to his friend, “Leave it, do you know how much homework we have tonight? It’s not worth the time.” He continues walking until he realizes John is now a good distance behind him, still staring at the tree, sizing it up like he’s about to fight it for looking at his girlfriend a wrong way. Tom lets out an exaggeratedly audible groan.
“I think I can get it!” John barks down the street. The closet branches capable of supporting any amount of weight are paired on either side of the tree, about three meters from the base. Tom starts making his way back to his entranced friend. John then leaps into the air, grapping at the just out of reach branch.
“Are you serious?” Tom yawns.
“I’ve got it,” he returns without a hint of doubt in his voice. Backing up for a running start, John is determined to reach the desperate animal. He makes a mad dash for the for the tree, boosting upwards off the trunk and snatching the branch, only to have it snap sending him crashing down to earth.
In surrender Tom sighs, “If you’re serious about this cat thing let me at least boost you up there. You’ll never make it like that.” Helping his friend up, and then sending him up the tree Tom looks up at the cat perched in the sunlight. In seconds, John is sat there too, the cat held high above his head.
Now hoping back to the street, “I got it.”
“Well, you happy?” Tom says starting to walk home again.
“You know, if I had a big red bus with a ladder on it, I could really get into this kind of thing.”