The Forest

1. The Beginning of the End

        The other side of Portland becomes a restricted zone for me the first day of winter, and I try to remember not to say much about it, as I sit at the breakfast table on Monday morning.

       My dad – very formal, a little too conservative – sits at the head of the glass table in the formal dining room silently reading the newspaper. The air is extremely chilly (my parents don't believe in heaters), and it makes the dining room have an atmosphere of loneliness.

       It isn't abnormal for the first fifteen minutes of our morning ritual to be like this, especially if my mother is not there for the first ten minutes.

       "Good morning grandma and grandpa!" she greets. With her vibrant, blue eyes and dark hair she doesn't really fit the role of a research ecologist in my opinion. Her other colleagues are, in fact, a bore, but she enjoys her career zealously.

      "I don't think I've fit the role of grandma, since I stopped knitting," I say, entertaining her banter. I flip my book upside down on the table, and smile at the smell of lavender and coffee that entere the room with her. My heart opens to the sight of her; she's beautiful.

       "Oh Charlie, I knew that navy sweater I got you would bring out the blue in your eyes! Sheldon, look at how it brings out her eyes, how big they are!"

       I make a face. "I feel like I'm the big bad wolf rather than your daughter right now."

       She giggles like a school girl, and I almost have to appreciate everlasting whimsical youth. It is hard drawing a line between her roles sometimes. "Darling, are you wearing those black leggings again? Jesus, Charlie, those things aren't pants..."

       "You might as well start a petition, because pretty much all you old folks are in the same ballpark."

       "It's a disgrace to the female wardrobe..."

       I blink. "They're pants..."

       My father flips the newspaper over and adjust his glasses. "The other side of Portland is under a serious warning right now," he says, and points outside the window of our loft. The city has many tall buildings and it goes on for acres, miles and somewhere in the distance the horizon becomes a blurry line and forestry stretches out for hundreds of miles. My parents make it essential to be on the top floor of our building in downtown Portland for this reason: to see where the city meets the forest. "Charlotte, I don't think we have to go down the list of rules, do we?"

       "I really don't think it's necessary," I say, pursing my lips.

       "Ah, but apparently it is, smart one," my mom says, taking a seat across from me at the table. She pours orange juice in my empty glass, and I keep my eyes on the table so that I don't roll them. "Especially when it comes to those kids at your school. I mean, they really find any way to keep themselves occupied these days. I just don't want you to be a part of that, Charlie...You know we have to sometimes....you know...remind you of these things, especially when there are so many people who decide to break the rules."

       The forest in the beginning of winter is the most dangerous area in the New England area notoriously responsible for swallowing its visitors and never spitting them back out. Ironically, my mother decides to move to this specific area so that she can study the forest from a distance. Kids from my school and other places never are stupid enough to enter, but they are stupid enough to lollygag around the perimeter at times.

       There is never a survivor who comes out, but there are many people who are willing to try. Apparently, this has cost them their lives and they never emerge from the thick forestry.