Subject: I actually found time for this!
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Posted on: 2020-06-28 11:45:22 UTC

It's quite short - only two hundred and fifty words - but it feels right at that length.

Tiger stood at the bottom of the old oak tree and sighed. It seemed like forever ago that he’d last climbed it. He’d never expected to be here again, but here he was. And there wasn’t much he could do about it.

He placed his hands against the rough bark of the tree and slowly stretched upwards until he could hook them around the lowest branch. This was the hardest part: getting off the ground. He took a deep breath and pulled himself upwards, scrabbling with his legs and clinging tightly until he was able to swing his leg over the branch.

That done, he was soon standing carefully on the branch and looking around to work out his next move. How had he done it before? It was just a step round and across to the next branch, and then he could claw his way further up… yes, that was it. There.

Only a few minutes later, he’d reached the spot he always used to sit in: the splitting of a large branch into two, high enough above the ground that he couldn’t be seen from below. He made himself comfortable and stared up at the bright pattern of leaves and the deep blue sky above.

A bird was singing higher up; he listened to its happy song and wondered how these little details could be just the same when everything had changed, when he was barely the same boy who’d climbed this tree only a few months ago.

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