I searched all over the internet for the name of a literary genre that started with the letter J and I could not find one that made sense for a Western audience. So, I chose the word Juxtaposition.
For this post, I will take the post I started this challenge with and tell it from the other person's perspective. The original post was A - Adventure. You can read that post to see the way I originally wrote it. It only had two characters. The original was written from Trina's perspective. This one will be the same story, but told from Terry's side.
"Why do I keep letting you talk me into this crap?" wailed Terry.
Terry's sister Trina seemed to be ignoring him as she wrapped his ankle. It figured. She dragged him all the way out here in the middle of nowhere and then got quiet when the inevitable happened.
"I didn't talk you into tripping over that branch. That happened because you were looking at your phone instead of where you were going. That's why I left mine in the car. No distractions. Just try to enjoy it out here."
Terry winced as he tried to stand up. "But I don't enjoy it out here. This is your thing, not mine."
He had been trying to tell her this all morning, but she chose not to listen. She'd been on this nature kick ever since she went off to college. He knew it had something to do with her major, but never expected it to turn her into a drag to be around.
Trina shot back, "I asked you this morning what you wanted to do together and you had nothing. So, I came up with something."
Terry swatted at the bugs around his face and tried to let her know that hurt, "That's not true. I asked you to play Halo with me. You weren't interested."
Trina sighed, "That's the opposite of doing something."
Terry wiped at the sweat on his neck. "All I know is that I never sprained an ankle running through the jungle with Lara Croft. A couple of hours with you and I'm a cripple."
Terry knew he was laying it on thick, but she rarely listened to him anymore. They used to have so much fun together. They shared a love of movies, great food, and raunchy stand-up comics their parents didn't like them to watch. They had stayed up all night playing Guitar Hero and other games hundreds of times…until she went off to school. Now all she wanted to do was go camping and fishing and hiking and other stupid things.
Terry had actually been excited the first weekend she came home from school. He had missed his Mario Kart buddy. He had rented the newest Final Fantasy for her weekend visit, but all she could talk about was her new friends and the classes she was taking. Every visit had been the same since. It was like she was a different person.
Trina didn't seem to be treating Terry's injury very seriously. "It's just a sprained ankle. Let's make our way back to the car."
Terry pushed away from the tree and collapsed as soon as he put weight on his injured foot. He tried to make a joke, "I don't think I can walk. Call an Uber."
Trina just laughed at him as the pain shot through his leg all the way up to his knee. He couldn't believe she was getting pleasure out of this. He reluctantly accepted her help getting to his feet. He didn't really have much of a choice. Plus, they were so far from the car, getting back was going to take a while. Especially at this new, slow pace.
As Terry slowly moved each foot, even with Trina's help, she kept pestering him with questions. It took a few before she landed on something he actually had an opinion about. "Have you gotten any new games since my last visit?"
He mumbled out a short answer, but she prodded further. Soon Terry was excitedly telling her the plot points of Hitman 3 and recalling his latest adventures in Red Dead Redemption II
now that he had the latest expansion pack. Trina was even asking a few good questions. After a few minutes, he was in a better mood and, despite the pain, sometimes forgot about his injury. He was just talking games with his sister like they used to.
With about half a mile left to go, they came to the log that had fallen across a dried creek bed. The creek was only about five feet deep, but had very steep sides. The bridge provided by the fallen tree was perfect. On the way in, they just walked across the log, but with Terry's injured ankle it was proving to be much more difficult this time. Trina and Terry couldn't cross hanging onto each other. He knew he was going to have to do it alone.
He still couldn't walk well, so they tried a couple of different ways. "Get in front of me and give me your hand," Terry said.
Trina did as instructed and it seemed to work. She had to walk backward and go very slow, but that little bit of support was all Terry needed to start working his way across. Terry was a little shaky without her supporting him, but if he took small steps he could slowly manage.
About halfway
across, Terry heard a sudden crack and loud grunting-type noise. Terry was startled and almost went down as he saw an awakened deer scrambling away from under the
tree. He heard a shriek from Trina and lost sight of her as she fell off the log and into the creek.
Terry laid himself down on the log to peer down into the brush. "Trina are you alright?"
He could hear the pain in her voice. "I don't know yet. I've hurt my knee. Give me a minute."
"What do you want me to do?"
He couldn't see her face, but he could see her hand as she waved him to keep moving to the other end of the tree. Terry edged his way to the other
side of the creek and eased himself down on the edge of the creek. He could see her now. He extended his hand as he laid on his stomach.
"Come on. I got you."
Trina tried to stand, but she was not moving well. When she hit the ground again, she pulled herself to the edge of the creek where Terry's hand was. He saw that she was dragging her leg behind her trying not to move it. As mad as he was at his sister, he felt bad for her. She looked like she was in worse pain than he was. That made two cripples in the woods.
She drug herself to the bank of the creek where Terry was and could not reach his outstretched hand and she was in too much pain to get higher. He tried to stretch further, but she told him to stop.
"Even if I could reach you, I would just pull you in. There's no way you can lift me."
Terry was a little insulted, but knew she was right. "I bet you wish we were playing XBOX right now."
He could hear her choking back a sob as she yelled, "Shut up. You're not helping."
He smiled a little at that one. "Sorry. What do we do?"
Through broken breaths, Trina explained, "I know I gave you a hard time for bringing your phone, but now would be a good time to use it. I can't get out of this creek and you can barely walk. Call Dad and let him know where we are. Him and Daryl will need to come rescue us."
"Um, Trina. My phone died about 20 minutes ago."
Terry didn't like their situation, but enjoyed hearing the little laugh that escaped from Trina. "We have
ourselves in a fix don't we? Terry, suck it up
and limp yourself back to the car? My phone will be fully charged. Got
it?"
"Yeah, but…I have no idea where I am. I've been following you the whole time. How do I find the car? I don't even know what direction to go."
Terry knew Trina had been excited to show this place to him, but even she had only been here once. And her preference for getting off the trail meant he had nothing to guide him back. "So tell me what to do, Mountain Man Trina."
"Crap! That's right. OK, listen, you still move better than I do. Find a section of creek that is not as steep or deep. At a shorter bank or less steep incline, maybe I can crawl out."
"OK. I'll try."
Terry heard Trina starting to cry as he limped along the side of the creek. He knew she had waited until he got far enough away to not hear here, but she hadn't waited long enough. She had always liked to be seen as the strong, responsible
older sister. He thought she was full of it, but wouldn't call her out on this one.
Terry had only moved about 50 feet along the side of the creek when it started to rain. Terry shouted, "SERIOUSLY? I hate it out here."
He worked his way back to Trina and leaned over the edge. "When this is all over, I hope you know I'm never going outside again."
Trina gave him a thumbs up and waved him away.
All this month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. A new post will go up every day (except Sundays) using a letter of the alphabet as the starting off point. My theme for the month is literary genres. I am writing in a different genre of flash fiction each day. Today's letter is J for Juxtaposition.
