Persistent Tree

2. Scars

Six months later

"CHAAAAAAAAAMPAAAAAAAAAAGNE!"

I flew down the hill, eyes wild, arms flailing, hair flying. People stared at me with a knowing light in their eyes.

"CHAMPAGNE!"

People peeked out of their windows as I zoomed past. Some people who didn't live on the long street shook their heads and clicked their tongues in sympathy at the madwoman running on the street screaming out the name of an alcoholic drink like a banshee.

"OH, SHIT!" I was going too fast to stop and correct the judgemental strangers. My legs flew back and forth as I struggled to stay vertical.

"CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGNE!!!!! GET OUT OF THE WAY, YOU LOT! OUT OF MY WAY! CHAMPAGNE!"

Heard of the adage 'curiosity killed the cat'? Well, I shall now tell you how true it is.

 A figure came out onto the sidewalk, abandoning the protection of wherever he had been visiting, and stared at me. By the time he realized that the ultrasonic shrieks I was emitting were telling him to move, and  the nervous impulses from his brain reached his legs, I had already collided with him.

"CHAAAAAAMPAAAAAAA–EURGH!" My hollering was interrupted by all the air leaving my lungs as I rammed into the poor man with the force of a battering ram. He, too, let out and "ARGH!" and the two of us whirled in a semicircle due to my momentum and fell to the hard ground, with me on top of him.

For a moment, we both lay still, with my head under his chin, as we were too winded to move. Then I rolled off him with a long groan and stood up, swaying drunkenly.

"Chaaaaaampaaaaaaagne....." I moaned.

Behind me, the man stood up unsteadily. "You've killed me, lady," he wheezed.

I ignored him and took a step forward, but almost fell flat on my face.

"Whoa, ease up, lady," the man said, catching me around the waist before I broke my nose. I struggled weakly against his hold. "Champagne," I said.

"Yes, indeed, champagne," the man said, using the patronizing tone everyone uses with the inmates of a mental hospital.

"No, Champagne," I emphasized, pointing in the general direction of the street.

"Yes, I'll get you some. Why don't you come inside and lie down for a bit while I fetch it? You had a bad fall."

No, he'll call up the local mental asylum. Fortunately for me, a man came up just then, trying to hold off a hyperactive German Shepherd. He was smoking hot, with honey  blonde hair and sea blue eyes, and a chiselled physique that would make any female drool. He was Thomas Hearten, a big-shot billionaire who came here to my neighborhood to jog. The demented German Shepherd was my dog Champagne, who loved Thomas more than she loved me, and more often than not dragged me along the road in her haste to go and drool over Thomas the moment she got a whiff of him.

"Oh God, Thomas, I'm so sorry," I said, still swaying woozily and being held up by the stranger behind me. "Champagne went berserk and ran out through the catflap, and I had to chase her. But I had an accident and she got away."

Thomas growled moodily. "Humph," he said.

"You know her, Tom?" the stranger said from behind me.

Thomas nodded. "She has a penchant for either injuring me or setting her dog on me."

"I do not!" I cried, offended. "My dog fancies you, that's all! She dragged me out at seven in the morning in my–holy crap, I am still in these ratty pajamas!"