Known and Unknown

It was as if out of a dream. Ugh. I hate even saying that. I sound like all of the people I've dismissed in the past. It was though. Surreal. It didn't feel very frightening or spooky but it had a sort of mystical quality to it.

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My emotions got the better of me and I was fuming.  It was my own fault, and actually quite petty, but I don't decide when anger takes me, I'm simply a vessel.  In an effort to become better at controlling myself after becoming irate (or any emotion I don't want to be feeling), a new routine was formed.  The emotion wells up inside me, I feel myself overreacting, and here is where I have been trying to remind myself to take a deep (deep) breath.  That alone doesn't usually help, so tonight I took a walk.  I rushed out of the house hastily due to my brain's zeal, and with haste typically comes carelessness.  Of course I left my phone on my desk.  It wasn't of grave importance, but it's one of those things you become so accustomed to that you feel different when you don't have it.  I almost didn't feel myself. 

I like the darkness.  Contrary to everyone I have ever talked to, I find comfort in it.  An almost immediate sense of calm came over me once I allowed my eyes to drink in the darkness around me.  It's such a pleasant walk around the neighborhood at three in the morning.  You're in a different place entirely.  It's so very quiet.  The type of quiet where you can hear leaves rustling from a gentle gust on a tree a full block away.  The quiet that accompanies darkness.  A good quiet.  Being in a bit of a suburb you have only street lamps to illuminate the path.  As I leered into the spotlight of the lamp at the end of the street, I realized how little I knew about light.  You don't think about it often, but it's more mysterious than it lets on.  There was simply a cone of light in front of me.  The darkness was all around it, and it was almost as if there was a firm barrier.  At one point, light, at the very next, dark.  They butted up against each other and didn't battle for supremacy but instead recognized their own limits.  I wondered why the light didn't reach further, glow brighter, or allow me to see more.  Only half a block away, I had enough light to see my clothes and my shoes, and the surrounding foliage, but not to discern the different colors on them.  I knew my sneakers were red, my pants were navy blue, and the weeds popping up between the sidewalk were green, but they were dull, foreign.  Only memories. Interesting, and like the quiet, altogether unique in it's portrayal.  I felt so hidden.  An observer on the fringe of living.  I could press myself up against the hedge blocking off the yard next to me and, if anyone else decided to venture out here, they'd never see me, even if they were looking. 

A moment of lucidity showed me I had calmed down, so I circled back around the block to head home.

As I made the turn, a black plastic bag made it's way to the middle of the street, about two full blocks straight ahead.  It reached the middle of the street and stopped dead.  I followed it's lead.  I'm not afraid of bags, but it wasn't very windy, so I decided to have a stare down.  The uncertainty of the situation dawned on me.  That was just some litter, right?  Here is where I disagree with people about the dark, but I couldn't help but take a cautious approach.  I'm not one to allow being alone in the dark turn something so innocuous into something frightening, I was just unsure.  It was only a few seconds, but the the bag, which I can see clearly now is not a bag, crawled back to the side of the street it blew in from, then disappeared.  The new clarity filled in some holes that my dubious brain left out.  What looked like a bag before was very clearly an animal, sat down on it's hind and looking at me, before it walked back the same way it came.  It looked too big to be a cat.  It wasn't a skunk, I could clearly see it's belly and it's at least somewhat feline features.  A fox, perhaps?  Do they have foxes around here?  I cursed myself for not knowing.  It seems a very simple fact, yet I was entirely stumped.  And why haven't I moved?  I just kept looking at where this creature had been. 

I detest when people have a strange encounter and their first reaction is to chalk it up to the occult.  I am a vehement denier of ghost stories, especially since every single one I have ever been told by someone contains the phrase ''it just felt weird.'' How foolish I looked, my pride quickly extinguished, as I stood here in awe of a simple animal out for a walk.  Why did this feel so strange to me?  The creature was silhouetted perfectly by the street lamp between us, so it was entirely black.  I couldn't make out any distinguishing features.  It really was bigger than a cat.  It really did sit in the center of the street and look at me for as long as I looked at it.  Those things happened.  I'm a credible source.  The most credible I will get during this event is right here and now, when I'm not trying to retell it and it's fresh in my mind.  I also hate that it vanished before my eyes.  The corner of the street it walked back to is the hilly corner of someone's small front yard, so it should have been visible for a while.  I couldn't track it.  I don't know where it went.  It just wasn't there anymore. 

For a while I thought about what it looked like from the other side.  This poor maybe-cat, maybe-fox, just wanted to cross the street and a spooky human stood in the middle of the street staring at it, and stayed there for what had to have been minutes, even after it slinked away.  Any bystanders coming my way would have seen  a man all by his lonesome at this time of night, standing there.  Menacing.  Innocently lost in thought, but looking murderous, as night tends to make us.

This didn't turn me into a believer.  I'm not one of those poor people who don't believe until ''something'' happens to them. Nothing else even remotely intriguing happened the rest of the walk home, if you want to consider that part intriguing.  I kept walking that way, since I had to, and I checked down the street it went down when I arrived there.  It was pitch dark.  I saw no movement, no animal, not a thing.  I stood there for a few seconds, hoping that I would get my resolution, but alas I was met with nothing but a deep black and a soft, warm, conformable breeze.  So I'm not some loon who thinks they saw something supernatural, but I can't deny that something so simple, so banal, so run-of-the-mill made me want to think I was.  Maybe it has no merit at all.  If the same thing had happened in the light of day, surely I wouldn't feel this way.  I would have just seen an animal walk across the street.  I don't attribute this to the power of souls, specters, or spirits, but to my comfortable blanket of darkness.  Is this a damning glimpse into the fragile human psyche, which longs for adventure and mysteries and a break from the monotonous existence we've made for it?  Does this desire to see magic in the world force us to create it out of smoke and haze and communal fear?  Do our vivid imaginations always seek to fill the gaps in our understanding and in our memories? I will not allow complacency to turn me into a hapless sod, pining after a trifle to add substance.  I will not become a prophet, seeking to turn others to my cause. 

Or maybe I will.  What could it hurt?  I guess I really did see a ghost black cat in the middle of the night, and it made sure I did.  I had a brush with death as the spooky thing stared me down.  Ghosts do exist and I've seen one, without a doubt.  You're bound to see one, too.  It's probably watching you right now.  They don't come out until it's dark, though.  Just like me.

The Lady of the Forest

I like to take walks sometimes to clear my head. The path through the woods I follow is peaceful and serene. It allows a gorgeous view. The trees and foliage are lush and deep, green and powerful. Rays of sun shoot through openings in the canopy, gently coating bark and brush with a layer of shine. It's especially nice after a nice rain has soaked into the plants. After a particular heavy rain, I was walking through the woods and I stumbled upon something you don't primarily see in the woods. There is nowhere you primarily see this. A girl sat at the base of a solitary tree, head down and clad in a black hoody and jeans. Her dark brown hair cascaded down the left side of her face, showing off half of her dark complexion. She was crouched down, feet and butt on the ground both, leaned against a door. A solid white house door, no hinges, no knob. The door laid long ways, making an upside down T with the tree. She didn't acknowledge me as I walked past. She didn't even lift her head. I continued my walk, too scared or too shy to approach this sight, even though I wanted to, from the core of my being to the fringes of my fingertips. Alas, I walked on, and eventually my thoughts drifted back to the things they normally drift towards. And I was back on track.

The next day I went through and the door was there, propped up against the tree, standing. It's presumed owner stood leaned against it in a human parabola, head down, studying tufts of dirt and grass. I hustled by once more, too afraid to disturb this woodland relic I've stumbled upon. It's only been two days, but it already has become special to me. To have a unique landmark on my walk was a joy I didn't know I was pining for until I had it and didn't want it to ever go away again. This consumed my thoughts for the rest of the walk, and suddenly I was out in the open and my mind snapped back to reality. Back to basics. 

Days went by in a similar pattern. Weeks. Months. Almost a year came and went, but closer to nine and a half months, before I changed my routine. At this point I'd walk past the forest nymph and her tree door and I'd speculate about it, neither of us paying the other mind out loud. Her clothes would change, but she would always be leaning, head down, against a stood up door. I began to lose focus on my walks. I didn't care about the beauteous nature, or the spectacular leaves, or the clouds or sun or dirt or dust or the pleasant flow of a stream in the distance, or the drip of rain from the tips of branches. I cared only about seeing my totem and her place in the woods. Then the day came when it was decided I would find out something about her. As I crunched over twigs and swiped thickets of greenery about, I stopped in my tracks and turned to face the girl. She lifted her head and shook it, showing me that she could, in fact, move. She was beautiful. I had seen glimpses of her cheek and forehead up until now, but that is not enough to sustain a man's expectations. Her skin was smooth and shiny, dark but glowing. Her brown hair so dark in the light of the wood it looked black, worn about her face as a picture framing an amateur Mona Lisa. Plump, red lips and a slender nose brought her face together and I took as much in as I could. We stared at each other for a short while before I eloquently spoke the word hi. She remarked the same. Now that that was over I was at a loss. With all of the possible questions I had on my mind, choosing one to start with was a task I was unprepared for. My plan consisted of one step: approach her. Mission accomplished. 

Lucky for me, she spoke up first. Her voice was not angelic nor anything special at all, but still pleasant to hear. She asked me if I thought it was a good spot. 

"For what?"

She replied that it was for her home. I didn't understand what she meant so I forged ahead mindlessly. 

"Well it certainly looks nice. I don't think animals care about that, though." 

She told me she meant her home. She was going to live here. I wanted to be stunned but it never came. As usual I ran through a trillion questions in my head and landed on the absolute dumbest one. 

"Aren't you worried about bugs?" 

She told me bugs were mostly helpful, like all things are. She went on for a short while about things bugs do. I hated bugs but I listened anyway.  Sadly I didn't have time to linger. We said our farewells and I went on my way. I spent so long thinking about what she said to me I didn't realize I had stepped out of the forest. And once I exited the wood, my mind cleared and I was free to think about whatever I pleased. 

*****

Each day I would pass by, we would talk for a short while, her being whimsical and enigmatic, me being normal and foolish. For a much longer time. I couldn't imagine a day without my girl from the woods.  And so I didn't.  

A ritual had begun.  We would talk and interact.  Nothing about our lives or families, or any small talk at all.  It was brilliant.  We talked only of our thoughts.  About why a person would want to live in the woods.  The solitary lifestyle.  Interacting with nature.  Being yourself.  Then the questions turned to me.  I was surprised at her sudden questioning, but it had not been sudden at all.  The day she started to ask me questions about my life had not been until several years into our meeting.  I was confronted with things I had never thought about before.  About my path through the woods.  My daily visits.  The state of my life.  We didn't get through all of them before I was hit with a preposition.  She asked why I didn't come live with her in the woods.  I was dumbfounded immediately, and still am today.  A befuddlement that lasts a lifetime reigned down on me.  One of those things that when you realize what happened years into the future it still confuses you up and down.  I told her no.  I told her I couldn't.  I had responsibilities and bills and friends and family and things.  So many things.  I just wouldn't be able to live in the woods, with nothing but a door and the clothes on my back and forest berries.  She told me that one day the woods would be all of our homes, so I might as well get a head start.  She said that the door was just the starting point.  She was preparing the woods for future generations.  I didn't really understand.  Maybe she was being philosophical or metaphorical but I had too much pressure on me now to question anything.  I shuffled off shortly after and I thought about her when I was out of the woods.  I thought about it all night, while I laid in my bed with the moonlight as my mistress.  I thought about it the next day as I sat miserly on a bench and ate my lunch instead of taking a walk through the woods.  I thought about it when I found more and more reasons not to visit again.  It consumed my thoughts until it didn't.  I couldn't bring myself to think on it any more and I couldn't bring myself to go back to to see her.  My indecision had made my decision for me.  

Years pass, as they always have and continue to do.  Time makes dirt of us all.  I was the same as always, only my hair had turned white and gone, and my bones refused to cooperate with one another as they used to.  Sibling rivalry and all that.  My wife had shown herself to me, then she, too, turned to dirt.  Sooner than most do.  My children had become visions of my fondest memories of myself.  I used to tell them stories of the woman I met in the woods.  It seemed a good enough fairy tale as any to tell a child before bedtime to get their imaginations going.  I told them so often they used to ask questions, and as they got older we talked about how it was real.  How there actually was a woman living in the woods.  Plain as you and I, only she wanted to get to know the Earth better than us.  And on my last birthday my children came to me with a desire and a question and a service.  They wanted me to take them to the patch of woods I used to walk through.  They wanted to see if anything was still there.  Of course there were hundreds of uncertainties.  They didn't doubt the legitimacy of my claims, but we collectively doubted even a hint of this woman could have remained in the forest.  

So we set out on a walk.  I had forgotten the pleasantries of the greens.  On we walked, from memory or from basal instinct or completely at random, it didn't matter.  I was absolutely delighted to be sharing the walk through the woods with my children.  And as we got farther in, I started to get scared.  I didn't recognize it anymore.  It had been so many years, but could the woods change that much?  I suppose they have.  And I didn't know what I was more frightened of.  Seeing her, or not seeing her.  My fears did the work for me when we happened upon a bundle of trees, twisted and intertwined and reaching far up to the canopy.  We were viewing an exposed muscle of the planet.  When we wrapped around the other side of the treeblock, I stopped short.  We all did.  At the base of the group of trees, stuck there, half open, connected but not, planted there with juxtaposition and demand, was a door.  The trees had grown around it, and accepted it as their own.  It had created a treehouse that a young boy could only dream up with his pure, innocent imagination.  I slowly stepped over roots and leaves and stood face to face with the door.  I put my hand on it, no knob, no window, and I stood there, touching it, for a very long time.  Not a word was spoken.  My children had given me space.  I assumed they were frozen with mythical apprehension, as I had been so long ago.  Assumptions never were my thing.  Eventually my hand slid to the right and found a crease in the door big enough for my wrinkled fingers.  I pulled gently and the door swung open with ease.  It was a miracle the door had worked in this way.  Miracles never were my thing, either.  The inside was cavernous and huge and only lit by sunlight shining through cracks in the fiber of the structure.  It was pleasant and dim and smelled like coffee houses the world over wish they could smell.  It was natural and vibrant, filling my eyes and ears and nostrils with stimuli that I welcomed with open heart.  My eyes adjusted to the light and I saw a lump in the corner of the room.  A woven blanket of vines, leaves, branches, leaves, and tree bark.  It looked wholly uncomfortable.  It moved gently up and down, or so I thought in the dark.  Sometimes in the dark you see things you want to see, and other things you don't.  This was one of those things.  I approached it and knelt down beside it.  I stayed there kneeling for a neverending few minutes and then I reached out and touched it.  I pulled the natural blanket aside rudely and found my nymph huddled underneath.  I laid my hands gently on her arm and did nothing else.  She awoke without start and devoid of fear or caution.  She rolled over and sat up into a cross legged position.  We stared at each other for a short while before I eloquently spoke the word hi. She remarked the same.  I took her by the hand and told her I was sorry.  She remarked that everything returns to nature.  I took that as an acceptance of my apology and hugged her.  I told her my children were outside and she invited them in.  They talked for a while, as I sat by unmoving.  I was lost in silence and I stared at my surroundings as a man who has achieved sight for the first time.  She answered their questions with her mysterious affront, but also entirely truly.  It was altogether strange.  I asked for some time alone with her and my children said they'd be back in a little bit and I assume left to wander the forest.  There was nothing else they could have done.  We ate berries and drank cold tea out of some sort of wooden canister.  It was all one piece and smooth.  I wondered how she made it, but didn't ask.  The tea tasted awful, and I can only assume it was made with rotten leaves.  I drank it with gusto.  Afterwards we laid down on the floor atop the blanket.  I moved my hand close to hers until our fingers fit into the crevasses of each other's hands.  Our legs found themselves wrapped up, just as the roots and spines of the trees around us.  I asked her how life had been and if she had been mad at me for not coming back.  She told me it was good and she wasn't because she knew I had been mad enough at myself.  I asked if this could be my home now.  She told me it always was.  I asked her if I could know her name.  She said I had to go first.  So I did.

"Ames"

"Ficca"

We laid there until we felt it was time to return to dirt.  Nature was our home now.  Together.