Chapter 11: Pondering

“You dead in there?” Toby awoke to his father yelling through his closed door. “You’ve been asleep for nearly twelve hours! The world wants to see you!”

“I’m up.” Toby yelled back through the door. “Head’s fine.”

“You want breakfast or something?”

“No, I’m fine.” Toby said. He never managed to get an appetite until at least fifteen minutes after he woke up. He might not have had a headache, but his head was still spinning. Son of a god? Leader of half gods?

“So why the hell do you want to go tree climbing?” Gary asked Toby as they both looked up in anticipation at the giant oak.

“Don’t you remember trying to climb this one when we were younger?” Toby asked him, blood pumping fast. There was a reason. He wanted to fall out of it.

“Yeah, and I remember you falling close to thirty feet out of it and landing on your feet.”

“Exactly. So if I can fall when I was five, then I’m sure this is a safe tree to climb.”

“Okay, but I also remember Josh falling out of it the next year, and landing flat on his back. He got the wind knocked out of his and couldn’t get it back for a few minutes.”

“Heh, yeah.” Toby smiled. “We thought he was going to die.”

“Anyway, the point is, this tree doesn’t like us.” Gary said, as he grabbed the first branch to pull himself up.

“I know. That’s my point, too.” Toby grinned and pulled himself right up behind Gary.

“I think that fall yesterday knocked your brains around a little bit.”

“No, I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while.” Toby lied, looking down behind him. He was only eight foot up. That wouldn’t kill him.

“Sure.” Gary said, a few branches ahead of him. “Hey, I think those boards are still up here from our last attempt at a tree house. We nailed them in way up here, remember?”

“I think so.” Toby said. “Shit, this is a really far way up. I can’t believe we had the balls to do this as kids!”

“Yeah. Wow.”

Toby looked down. Was jumping out of the tree really the only way to prove to himself that he was a three-quarter god? Couldn’t he do something less… death defying?

“Hey, Gary?” Toby yelled up to his friend.

“Yeah?”

“If you wanted to kill yourself, how would you do it?”

“Woah, where’s this coming from?!” Gary looked down at him. “Do we need to commit you?”

“No, dude. I’m just curious.”

“My mom has Vicodin in the cupboard.” Gary admitted. “I’d finish the bottle off. That would have to kill me. No pain. Just sleep.”

Toby didn’t reply and just kept climbing. If he was going to jump out of the tree, he’d do it when Gary wasn’t there. So his friend wouldn’t call him crazy. He supposed. Or have him instituted. Plus, if Gary wasn’t around, he could actually jump, and not have to make it look like he fell. If he still wanted to do it.