A boy with a stick and a cattail

This young man found that no cattail could stand up to his mighty swing with a stick.

Boys and sticks.  They're like peanut butter and jam, Tom and Jerry, or flowers and honeybees.  The pairing is inevitable, guaranteed, a certainty upon which you could bet wildly.  Not all sticks qualify as the eminent rapier or throttling club, for twigs break easily and logs are too hefty to lift.  But, when found, the perfect stick can be wielded with force, cunning, and charisma.  And it just so happened that  I was there when I witnessed the event in person.

It was destiny.  There, on the ground, in front of the blue-clad boy, was a stick.  And not just any stick, it was the perfect stick.  About as long as his arm, strong but not too heavy, and smooth.  The bark had all but gone and the wood grain was clearly visible.  It made a very satisfying whoosh when it was swung with vigour.  His hand gripped it well, almost as if it had been made for him alone.  But, that wasn't all.

Ahead of him were his victims.  Lined up in a row as if their very existence were for the coming moment.  Mature cattails, whose dried brown seedpods had virtual bull's-eyes engraved upon them.  Anyone could see what was coming.  A gleam in the stick-holder's eye spoke of the building wrath within.  A firm grip, arm held high with a precision bend of the elbow, and many years of stick throttling were released.  With a swashbuckling swing, the brown, velvety heads burst open, the sky filled with mayhem, as the wind bore the tiny parachute-held fruit into the air.

The explosion of snow-like projections left the boy with a sense of awe.  One mighty swing was all it took to turn the brown, dull-looking husk into a brilliant spectacle.  There wasn't a snowstorm in history that could equal the visual carnage that lay before him.  And that was with the sudden and violent demise of just a single cattail.  There were hundreds of them before him; oh, it would be glorious.

But then, coming back to reality, his nearby mother called to him.  "Son, leave the plants alone."  Sad, really, for the moment could have been truly epic.  Instead, a single cattail that lay slain was the only testimony to the event that was now strewn about the land.  Still, it was something he would always remember.  The day that cattails trembled.  They were lucky.

But tomorrow was another day.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com