The Beauty Beyond the Trees

Mother can be a dangerous spirit

        Is it possible to believe in the impossible? I think so. Because I have seen such wonderfuland amazing things if they didn't actually exist I'd be wearing a straight jacket. But no, instead I'm here recounting the wonderful story of how one summer, I saw the beauty beyond the trees. Some say it's quite impossible to believe in something your whole life...but I have managed just fine. Just like in the movie The Polar Express for most people the wonder and magic of life is simply lost over time. The joy that is found in a child's eyes is something that can never be replicated or explained. As for me, I'll never stop believing not even if the forest in which my beauty sleeps is cut down will I stop believing, stop knowing, that she is alive and real. She is my very own unicorn.

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        It was a quiet afternoon in my house. I was sitting on the couch watching TV and eating Cheetos while my older brother had a heated argument with my mother over the phone. Being fifteen and not caring much about the rules of guardianship I didn't really listen, only hearing bits and pieces.

        "No he's not safe with you...no...I don't care if he is your-well of course not. Mom it's not my fault you're a druggy... I will call social services... YOU"RE NO MOTHER TO ME AND YOU AREN'T FIT TO BE ONE TO HIM." He hung up hurriedly and sighed.

         While the fact my family was not perfect had never really affected me, it was about to more than I could know. This was mostly because of three things that had happened. One, My father had been a druggy and got my mom hooked too. He got mixed up in the wrong "wrong crowd" and was shot. This further pulled my mom under because they had one son and she was pregnant with me. Two, My brother had known what it was like with two parents and however horrible they were, they were still family. For some reason he found a way to blame himself for my screwed up life and tried to take charge as best he could. Three, In her own messed up way Mom loved us. She loved both of us even if sometimes she forgot it. So when child services threatened to take Charlie and me away from her, she fled. She fled from the terror of losing the rest of her family and ended us up in the worst part of the most dangerous city in the US...Detroit, Michigan. (Im sure to some it's a great city but for the purposes of this story it's true and if you don't think it's true look it up)

        Charlie had this way about him, if he wasn't  moving or talking then he was hatching a plan. A plan that could very easily become something I did not want to participate in.

        "What... what horrible idea are you hatching now Charles..." I used  the name he despised simply for brotherly emphasis. What concerned me the most was that he didn't even react to my "goat-getting"(patent pending ;))

        "I'm thinking of getting out of town... got a job offer and since school's out in a couple days I was wondering if you'd like to come with." I thought about it for a moment. The fact that my mom had just had an argument with my brother and him asking to go on a trip happened one after the other, did not seem coincidental.

         I can't decide if this decision on my part was unfortunate but it felt so at the time, I answered, "Sure, what's in it for me?"

He looked disappointed and said, "I see, I try to take you away, do something nice and different for a change and you only care about the other perks then spending time in the fresh air... I see how it is... forget I asked." He stood and left. Only later did I learn that it was all he could do to keep from laughing because the look on my face was "priceless". I was a lot of things when I was fifteen but  selfish was not one I wanted to be. I stood and hurried after my brother to the tiny door that seperated the hallway from his/my room.

        "Charlie... where would we be going?"

        "Oh, No where you'd be interested in I'm sure," He said intriguingly through the door.

        "Look, I'm sorry Char, BUT WHERE?" I pounded the door and rested all my weight against it, whispering "Charlie i need to know charlie charlie charlie" over and over again in a raspy voice. I heard him stifle a laugh and stand form the bed he was presumably sitting on. The door opened and he looked down at me,

        "It's a little town up north called Conway...population 204...well temporarily 206 if you say you'll come." I looked up at him thinking about and adventure and not expecting one quite like the one I was about to receive.