Seasons

The World We Know

                                                                                   SUMMER

It was morning, the sun lay hidden behind the dark clouds that had gathered in the East. The earth below cast in a cool gloom left over from a storm the night before. The smell of wet dirt and pine seeped in from the outside and filled my nose, prying me from sleep.

I looked out my window and gazed upon the silent world around me. My body, wet with sweat from another night of fever dreams. I can't ever recall the details, except for the anxiety they made me feel.

The forest outside stretches out around me for miles in all directions. I came here chasing a voice, it had been getting stronger over the years. The further West I travelled, the closer it seemed.

Since I was twelve, it has called, and I have followed. It led me to a kind family who had taken me in. After years of paperwork and trying to track down my parents, we discovered my father dead and my mother missing, they adopted me. They put up with my desire to journey West. We would travel every summer, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and California. I kept a journal every summer about where the voice was the strongest. Idaho and California were too faint. In Oregon it was louder but more of an echo calling from somewhere farther North. It seemed Washington was the key to my past.

I worked most of my teenage years and some of my adult ones putting away money for a pilgrimage I knew I would one day take. The time would come when I would have to put everything behind me and seek out the voice.

On my twenty-fifth birthday, thirteen years since I had lost my memory, save for my name and urge to survive. I packed up what I would need, opened a few credit cards, padded my bank account, and said farewell to those who gave me a better life than I could have ever asked for and made my way West.

The past year I had been on the road, stopping when I heard the voice. It was like chasing a will 'o' the wisp, leading me one way only to then call me back the way I had come. I finally settled in a rental cabin where the voice surrounded me.

While this vacation village, "The Silver Pine" had offered a little bit of solitude. There were a few neighbors, but most everyone had kept to themselves. This gave me space to stand outside and stare off into nothing, trying to make my eyes see deep into the woods, waiting to hear the voice.

So, there I stood, looking out the window of the living room, with my coffee, out into the forest; listening. The grass beyond the raised covered patio was still damp from the rain the night before. The blades sparkled in the sunrise.

I sipped my coffee when something on the patio caught my eye. Footprints led from the grass to the windowed door. I sat down my coffee; and walked outside. The ground was cooler than I expected. The scent of pine was heavy this deep in the woods so much so you could taste it on your tongue. I looked around but couldn't see anyone. I crouched down to look at the print, suddenly aware that the tracks only lead up to the door but not back to the woods. The print didn't seem human, it had to be thirteen inches long plus another four inches of toes, or claws. I turned and looked at the glass door, from this side I could make out smudges smeared across it, like something had its face pressed against the glass staring into the cabin. After standing up I heard something shuffle across the top of the roof, the wood moaned as the sound made its way across. Then, silence just the sound of the breeze as it blew through the forest. I looked up and took a few steps back, then felt something sharp dig into my foot.

"FUCK'' I shouted, as I stared down at a piece of wood stuck in the bottom of my foot.

I pulled it out and noticed other small scraps of wood strewn about the deck. I looked back up at the awning and saw the source. Chips and gouges carved a jagged maze across the beam above me like something had been pulling and chewing on it.