Flux

I'll Never Forget the Way You Made Me Feel

"Help!"

A young man named John looked up to see his friend sprinting across the wheat fields. His friend had a panicked look on his face, but one filled with hesitation all the same.

"John, help! It's your father, he's gone beyond the fence!"

John watched his friend stumble over a rock, and his words, as he delivered the message. The sounds of the nearby stream filled the short void of silence. John threw his harvesting knife to the ground. The metal bounced with a clean, hollow sound as the young man ran off with his friend towards the fence.

"He's not breathing," the friend said. "At least, he doesn't seem to be."

John had no response. No nod, no questions, nothing. It was easier for him that way. It meant he could go on running, holding on to the hope that maybe, just a simple maybe, there was something to be done to help his old man.

The two ran on for what felt like hours, each one's heart pounding for different reasons altogether. As John ran on there seemed to be this sense building within him, an idea that he had constructed that his father was already dead and that there was nothing to be done to save him. This had to have been some sort of panic dream thought up by the young man, but it didn't matter at all since there was no shaking that odd feeling.

Feet crunched down on soft soil, one in front of the other as the pre-trodden pathway lead them to the fence. At the edge of the stream, where the waters seemed to sprout up from nothing, there started thin fencing which held back the dark forests unknown to John and his people. The fence was built to separate the fertile fields from the dense forests that were long forgotten to the people of the village. No one had crossed that fence in quite some time, and with good reason.

John stopped at the fence edge. Across the gateway was his father's body, and there were no signs of him breathing. For a moment there was no hope in John's mind. This was the end for his father, and thus he was no more. After a second of thinking, John leaped over the fence, much to the shock of the friend that came with him.

"You can't do that, John," his friend shouted. "Just look at him. Is that what you want to happen to you?"

John didn't respond. Instead, he walked closer to the body without any fear or hesitation on his face. He brought the body back across the fence without any sort of apprehension or regard for the customs of his people. Those that crossed the fence were never to return.

Later that night, the village all gathered in the center in front of the chief's house as they always did. There was a great fire to keep everyone warm. It also served to cook the meats and bread of the day's bounty, and everyone gathered around it to dance and sing, as they always had. John had made it back home before the evening's fire had died out. Its smoldering embers gave enough heat to still draw in a crowd, but as the food supply drained, so too did the people. Among the members of the remaining crowd was the witch doctor, the one who was to guide the village in all things medical. John brought him the body of his father. He dropped it on the ground, puffing up dust in the air as he did. Without hesitation or question, the witch doctor went to work. He put a finger on the neck, tracing it down to the stilled heart of the dead man when he noticed a wound at the man's side. There were two marks, unnoticed by John, who was more concerned with rescuing his father than anything else.

"It must have been the spirits of the woods," the witch doctor said.

"And how do you know?" John asked.

"Lest he was to lay beside a serpent or great spider as they bit him, there is no other explanation. The forest is unkind. It is why we have the fence. For long did we suffer until we made a way to keep those menaces away."