The Footsteps

I feel it approaching. I cannot see it but I sense its approach as my insides turn dull. A quiet high-pitched sound pierces through the midnight chill of this lush, wild forest. As I run through it, it gets closer and louder, my knees weakening and breath shortening. With a quick sharpness, an aching grief-stricken wail attacks me, almost knocking me off balance, my eardrums on the verge of bursting. It was my little girl. The wail was hers.

My fast-moving feet and my quick pace try to get me away from it. I run as fast as I possibly can to get away when a second wail approaches. A different one but just as painful to listen to. It starts off the same way as a quiet high-pitched ringing but it builds and builds with bloodcurdling agony mixed with pitiful hurt and threatens to never crescendo. The wail is my son's.

I do not let up on my sprint in an attempt to escape it. The thick grass on the ground below me latches onto my foot and brings me to the floor of the forest. The trees of the forest look down upon me and mock me as I kick and try to wrestle free. The grass wraps itself around my leg, crawling up my thigh as it cuts off all blood circulation whatsoever.

I hear the wind laughing at me as it glides around in all directions. I feel my muscles giving way while I try to tear through the ever-extending blades of grass. Again, the wails approach; their quiet high-pitched ringing beginning to fill my ears. Tears roll down my eyes as they get louder and louder till it feels like they are being screamed into my ears at point blank range. I strike the grass with my fist in a fit of desperation. I need to weaken it. I raise my fist again and as I lower it to strike, the sound of a single heavy footstep silences the forest.

Even the tall grass wrapped around my leg no longer puts up a fight and lets go. I hear another heavy footstep as I unwrap the last of the blades of grass. I stumble forward. My legs no longer have the strength to support me. They nearly give way with every step I take as I climb the slope before me, covered with fallen leaves and loose rocks. My legs burn as I near the top. I dig deep, tapping into whatever reserve of energy I have left and launch myself over the slope.

A loose rock with sharp edges pierces through my worn-out old slipper and scratches the underside of my foot. I wince as I feel the blood wetting my slipper. I set my other foot down and roll my ankle on another lose rock. I tumble down the other side of the slope as the sharp-edged rocks cut through my skin as effortlessly as they tear through my shirt.

An eternity later, I reach the bottom: a quiet empty clearing in this sardonic forest. No rocks under me. No wails. No deadly grass. I just lie here. I wouldn't want to get up even if I could. I lie here and I cry because I see them. I see my little girl and boy. They have scratches and blood-soaked clothes too. They lie down in the middle of the clearing so incredibly still, barely finding the energy to breathe. Their little hands so soft with innocence are torn apart at their fingers and their pure hearts beat slower and slower.

Tears roll down my face and onto the earth beneath me, as I gaze upon these lifeless versions of them. I do not stop to think of whether these are the children of mine that I have known for so long, or whether they are simply figments of this forest that finds amusement in my insecurity. Instead my mind ponders over a question.

Is this where I will lead them?

One day they won't be the little children lying in their warm beds at home like how I left them today, but instead be food for worms, waiting to be swallowed up by the earth. And it will be because I was not enough.

My hoarse voice echoes through the forest as I reach out and call out to them. They do not move. That is when it hits me, more violently than the sharp rocks that broke my fall, I cannot do this without her.

I think of how we promised one another, regardless of where we were or how difficult things got, that we'd help each other get through everything life threw at us. It's been eight months since my wife passed away and not a second goes by where I do not miss her. She'd know what to do in this moment. She had a knack for knowing what to do and what to say when somebody else did not, especially when that somebody was me. In fact, she was the only person in the world that would've known what to do to comfort our children and get them to stop crying on the day of her funeral. I could only tell them the words that came to me in that moment. Be strong. It's going to be alright. But their tears and their wails relented.