Lloken felt grateful of little Dorothy for offering him the accommodations he needed during his first night in her rural town. He couldn’t imagine where else he could possibly find a place providing him with a roof above his head right that moment, if it wasn’t for that child.
Unluckily, on the other hand, her mother’s reaction wasn’t the one expected exactly. She wasn’t even in position to let her daughter start talking when she faced that strange man standing beside her in their doorsteps. The only thing she managed to do in her fright was to drag the little girl into the house and close the door harshly.
Even though little Dorothy knew that her mother was at all others a very kind and gentle woman, during their way to her home she warned Lloken that in case she had the reaction she eventually had, he should find a temporary shelter in her tree house. She even showed him in which tree it was located when they were crossing the farmyard, but this was totally unnecessary since it was big enough to be obvious even from a lot more meters away.
That “house” was everything she was most yearning for as a child and on the morning of her sixth birthday she found it solidly constructed almost five feet from the ground in the middle of the big plane tree of their farmyard. Her father was a tab hand at stuff like building and fixing old broken tools, so he found it very easy to build within a night that tree- house for his adorable daughter.
Since the morning Dorothy first faced it and parallelized it with a doll house she had spent countless hours there, decorating it with old useless things she was founding in her family’s house. She had spend many afternoons in there with her two best friends, pretending like they were drinking tea like their mothers were doing. Dorothy would invite them and would take care the place before their arrival in order to be everything in its position and after their leaving she would stay a little more feeling satisfied as she would recall every single compliment her friends had done about how beautiful and how spacious her tree house was. It was indeed very large for a tree house and it was so well- groomed as well that it like a micrography of a proper house. Or most likely, of a proper room of a house
The current moist night Lloken was feeling his stomach terribly empty and his body so painfully tired that he felt like the luckiest man of the world when he found a whole packet of chocolate biscuits forgotten under the small bed he was lying. He swallowed the last bite of those and he only dared to give an instantaneous glance outside the small window as he didn’t want to risk to be possibly seen by anyone. He saw that the only house with a light on at that time was only little Dorothy’s. He assumed that her mother would wanted to know about their uncanny meeting and she would probably telling her how dangerous and risky those days were to talk to strangers; let alone to bring them home.
He was troubled enough already and he couldn’t find the strength to think about Dorothy’s pitiable condition any further, therefore he effortlessly surrendered himself into the peacefulness only sleep is sometimes able to utterly provide people with.
The next morning, Lloken woke up to find a basket overstuffed with food that Dorothy had left for him under the plane tree. He descended the extending ladder and then after taking the basket he ran up again in order not to be seen by Dorothy’s mom or a passer-by. He spent all day up there trying to be the quietest he could and only on afternoon little Dorothy went to see him for few minutes and brought along a slice of bread her mother had baked. She said that she couldn’t bring more because her mother might perceive the extra- missing portion.
Lloken thanked her for her generosity and the compassion she showed to him but he said he should have to go the next morning for to find a proper place to stay and start reorganizing his life for once more. In any case, he wasn’t the kind of man who should hide himself from other people or who could cause a trouble with his presence to a child. The little girl didn’t say anything but her look showed that she was of the people who always think beyond their age and are wise enough to let others do their own way.
Almost twenty four hours after his staying in the tree- house, Lloken was felling numbed by the limited moves he was only able to perform inside the disposable restricted area. He had spent the whole day thinking about the previous day’s predicament and also watching the inhabitants through the small crevices between some of the woods the tree- house was built. He hadn’t noticed anything special apart from few louts who were roaming around all afternoon and were chasing a poor stray dog just to make its life more miserable than already was. Despite that, he embraced the idea that those township men were living a quiet life and they may also were good- mannered in general.
The height and position the tree- house was located, allowed everyone who had access on it to have visual contact with all the houses of the small region the village was extended and having an undisclosed eye on the occurrences. Lloken thought that maybe Dorothy as a kid had probably spent a lot of time staying there and watching curiously the goings- on and maybe, she had probably many times become an unnamed witness of concealed events. However, that day the only thing he watched was, ordinary people doing ordinary things. Nothing more extravagant than men coming and going from their works some more tired than the others or women standing for a while in a point of the central road and having a short chit- chat with other women who were crossing on their way.
Lloken’s thoughts weren’t enough to beat the numbness he started felling all over his body and he decided to run down the stairs and have a quick walk for some minutes. He deemed that he wasn’t in imminent danger to be seen by anyone because it was extremely dark that night and humidity was making it very difficult for anyone to discern that easily a moving shape in a distance. Moreover, the few houses of the province had all turned their lights off since a respectably long time before and tranquility had reigned all around.
It was in truth such a quiet night and even if his hometown weren’t the most crowded place in the world, the present calmness was almost frightening him. It took a while to get used of the silence which in the start felt like it was so strident for his ears and once he did, he attempted to step away from the shadows and move closer to the houses of the village. An inexplicable urgency to make his presence evident shook even his own self.
Although he felt the temptation to prolong his walk, Lloken decided to return and have a rest until the dawn that he decided he ought to leave before everyone’s waking up. He once again thought that he was putting himself in unnecessary danger.
Abruptly and only few steps before he reach his shelter he felt anxious when all of a sudden he saw the lights in each house to go on one after the other almost in chorus. He felt panicked and presumed that everybody had perceived his unauthorized staying in their province and now he had fallen into an ambush by the formerly peaceful- seeming peasants. He started running until he reached the tree- house though he thought that he may should had taken the opposite track and leave the farest and fastest possible. Within a fraction of moment different and irrelevant contemplates crossed his mind. What he was doing there and why he didn’t leave the first night when Dorothy’s mom got terrified, were the main ones.
Not having any abundance of time in his possession at all, he ran up the stairs as fast as he could and he waited there watching from the crevices all the male inhabitants gathering together only few meters away from the tree- house.
