The Forest

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The first time I see the man I find myself at the edges of the forest.
Out here the trees are old and bent and not nearly as densely packed together and the forest floor is always covered in a thick blanket of fallen and rotting leaves. It swallows up the sound of my footsteps as I walk and I sink away slightly with every step.

It is never day or night here.
Just an everlasting twilight that clings to the cracked bark like moss.

It's quiet.
There are no sounds of tittering birds or the scatter of small creatures in the underbrush.
There is just silence.
Nothing lives here and nothing moves.
Even the wind itself seems to be holding its breath. Hiding and waiting for better times to come.
But out here, they never do.
These parts are old, perpetually darkening and eerily quiet.

I hear him before I see him.
A noise of someone sobbing softly that bounces off the trees and sinks into the moldy soil beneath my feet.
It's the first sound I've ever heard in these parts.
At first I think I've imagined it. Since I've entered the forest I sometimes see or hear things that aren't actually there.
It doesn't frighten me as much anymore as it used to, when I first got here, but it still manages to unsettle me every time it happens.

I close my eyes and count to ten.

inhale

exhale

The air sticks to the inside of my nose and throat like a film but it smells and tastes of nothing.

For a moment I imagine I am not here. That I am somewhere else where the sun shines on my face and I can actually feel it, where the air sometimes smells like fresh cut grass and where, in winter, your boots will leave crackling tracks in freshly fallen, pristine, snow.

I take another big breath before I open my eyes again.
Still nothing.
Stillness and nothingness and nothing else.

But the sound is still there.

Against my better judgment I follow it.

I see him but he doesn't see me.
I am hidden behind a large tree with barren branches that reach towards the depressing sky like the grasping fingers of a witches' hand.

He is kneeling on the forest floor and he hides his face in one of his large hands. His grief has become as soundless as our surroundings but I can still see it there alive in the shaking of his shoulders.

He looks older than I am.
If I were to guess I'd say late forties or early fifties.
His hair is dark and short and unkempt but there is already a hint of gray creeping in at the edges of his sideburns and the stubble on his chin.
He is wearing grayish pants that I'm sure must have been black at one point and a flannel shirt that reminds me of a lumberjack for some reason.
His shirt is askew and there are a couple of buttons missing.

He is not alone.

There is a woman lying still on her back amidst the leaves before him.
Her hair is long and bright as the sun and she wears a yellow summer-dress.
She is not moving.
For a moment I hope she is just sleeping but nobody sleeps here.
I can't even remember the last time I slept.
It's been so long.
I've been here for so long.

He finally lowers his hand from his face, it trembles slightly as he does so, and he uses it to carefully stroke the lifeless woman's hair.
His fingers leave behind a trail of blood as he does so.
The vibrant red of it combined with the gold of the woman's hair so striking that it makes her almost seem alive in a way.
But I know that she is not.
I see it now.
There is blood everywhere.
Spattered in a chaotic pattern on the trunks of the trees surrounding them, seeping into the ground below her, soiling her dress and pristine skin and hair.......the man's hands are dripping with it. It is lodged beneath the nails of his fingers and he will never be able to get rid of it.

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