Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh

something he could make into a leather vest. The treetops rose faster and faster — pagoda-shaped snow pines, birches with white bark, and oaks with yellow leaves fluttering like butterflies. He tumbled into their outstretched canopies.
    Granddad was still holding on to the spiraling vine for dear life when it caught on a strong but yielding limb of an oak tree. As he hung in the canopy of the tree, he heard the crack of branches snapping. He fell into the crotch of a thick limb and sprang up into the air; again he hit the limb and again he bounced into the air. Finally he came to rest under the vibrating tree, just in time to see the two foxes, first one and then the other, as they thudded into the thick carpet of dead leaves. Like a pair of explosives, the two soft bodies sent rank mud and rotting leaves flying off in all directions. Two dull thuds rustled the dead leaves, the older ones fluttering down to blanket a pair of similarly dead foxes. Gazing down at the brilliantly colored foxes as they were being buried by red and yellow leaves, Granddad suddenly felt his chest expand with heat. A sweet taste filled his mouth, and a red flag slowly unfurled in his skull. Lights went on all around him, and his pain vanished into thin air. His heart overflowed with warm sentiments toward the foxes. The image of them descending gracefully into a bed of red and yellow leaves flowed in and out of his mind. Curtly I said, Granddad, you passed out.
    The call of a bird awakened Granddad. The scorching noonday sun baked parts of his skin, streams of glorious golden light filtering through gaps between branches and leaves. Light green squirrels leaped nimbly about the tree as they plucked acorns and gnawed at the husks, exposing the white flesh underneath with its subtle bitter aroma. Granddad began to grow aware of his body. His internal organs were all right; his legs were all right. His foot ached, and there were black clots of blood and torn flesh where the female fox had bitten. His neck hurt where the male fox had buried his teeth. Unsure of where his arms were, he searched for them and found them raised high over his head, still grasping the vine that had saved his life. Experience told him that they were dislocated. He straightened up. Dizzy, he stopped looking down. Using his teeth, he pried his fingers off the vine. Then, with his legs and the tree trunk for support, he worked his arms back into their sockets. He heard the pop of bone and felt sweat ooze from his pores. A woodpecker was attacking a tree nearby. The pain in his neck returned with a vengeance, as if the woodpecker's pointy beak were tapping on one of his white nerves. The cries of birds in the forest could not drown out the sound of ocean waves, and he knew that the ocean was very close. The moment he lowered his head he felt dizzy, and that was the greatest peril in climbing down from the tree. But it would be suicide to stay where he was. His guts were tied in knots, his throat was parched.
    Straining to get his nearly useless arms working, he put his legs and belly to work as he began his descent from the tree, forcing his body hard against the trunk. But his efforts were not rewarded, as he tumbled headlong down to the ground. The carpet of rotting leaves cushioned his fall. He'd fallen too short a distance to cause an explosion. The sweet, acrid stench rising up from under him overwhelmed his sense of smell. He got to his feet and, with the sound of water in his ears, began to stumble forward. The stream was hidden beneath the rotting leaves, and as his foot stepped down on them, a coolness rose toward him, and water seeped up from where he had stepped. He lay on his belly and parted the rotting leaves, layer after layer, where the sound of the water was the loudest. It was like peeling away the layers of a flat cake. At first the water was murky; he waited a moment until it cleared. Then he lowered his head to drink, and the cold water rushed past his chest into his stomach; the fetid taste didn't come until later. That brought to my mind the moment during the war when he had lapped up the hot, dirty, tadpole-infested water of the Black Water River.
    Once Granddad had drunk his fill, he felt much better and more energetic. All that water staved off his hunger for the time being. He reached up to feel the wound on his neck. It was a pulpy mess, and he recalled the stabbing pain when the fox's teeth snapped off as the animal was ripped away. Gritting