On Oak and Casket

The splintered wood and smooth metal of train tracks felt unyielding as Oak traced his fingertips along it. Its decay was only guaranteed by wear and time as all things are and should be. Inlaid into the ground were pathways that led travellers to a predetermined destination. So even now, the deafening rumbles of a carrier barrelling through a silent forest would mollify him, as it meant people arrived where they were meant to go. Although his name should have been blessed by sturdy trunks and branching roots that grasped basins of dirt untouched by millennia, Oak rarely felt grounded. He always thought it ironic that his childhood was unmoored, adrift with how life took uncontrollable turns this way and that. Military brats were constantly uprooted along with their families, as they never stood in one place for long. Though his own nature was also to never stand in one place for long, much to the chagrin of the adults in his life. By the passing of his formative years, he felt he held similarities to a train, in that he too was already on a set path. However, instead of arriving at large waypoint stations, hubs that were essentially a beast come alive, Oak was on a straight shot path to nowhere.

By the time most would consider old enough to settle down, he was still traversing forests and campsites, mountains and ranges, rivers old and deep set. Primordial things he revered. He no longer knew his parents, his parents no longer knew him. Well, it wasn’t that much of a surprise, was it? Considering his misgiven name, they had never known him from the moment he entered the world anyways.

It was hard at first, lugging over thirty-pounds across his back. It was harder when he did not yet know to lug thirty-pounds and what constituted a suitable thirty-pounds. He suffered each day in one way or another by mother nature’s cruelty. He had to learn a lot to get a safe, let alone restful, night’s sleep. But it was satisfying to him too. Although he was left with want each way he went in the beginning, soon enough, he figured out odd jobs he could complete. Bartering with firewood was a major one and he still did it from time to time. In fact, he did it for so long, he almost considered himself a lumberjack instead of a vagrant. But when he had enough saved for each piece of survival, he set back out on his untethered ways. He learnt how to properly care for his tent, sleeping bag, mat, portable stove, and gravity filters so that it’d extend their lives as long as possible. Washing and air-drying things out after each use, tying food up in the trees to prevent bears or rodents from getting at his next meal, how to best lay and prepare everything so that it would be possible to move the next day. That was the most important. Being able to go where he wished and do what he wanted even with the constraints placed upon him by his mortal body. Otherwise, what was the point?

During the coldest days of the winter months, he begrudgingly trudged back into the towns where he could no longer smell crisp pine and morning dew. They had shelter in the obvious places, sometimes he would be lucky enough for shelter meant for wanderers. More oft though, this was an unreliable and hard-pressed accommodation. Towns had a type of density that had no room or handouts to spare for vagrants, not much thought either. He liked this invisibility though, it was another freedom to Oak. It was worse when people saw him in the places he wanted to go. The unshaven fur on his face, bramble-thick hair, and a smell of both smoke and moss emanating from him would draw stares if he entered establishments meant for Others. Libraries, for instance, were somewhere he needed to grow thicker skin for. The troves of knowledge were supposedly meant for all, but this term was meant for all Others. Still, he wanted the knowledge more than he cared about the bated whispers or looks of disgust. He even cared about it more than constantly being dragged out by security guards. Typically, these guards didn’t care so much about a being such as himself, they “weren’t paid enough for this” as they always grumbled. But they had to do their jobs if they so much as received a single complaint. Sometimes they would even be a bit apologetic to Oak. Of course you would never be able to tell from their demeanour, but the eyes of a working-class person one step away from possessing no options could sometimes see themselves in those they considered wretches. However, sometimes that very same self-reflection would make them angry. Angry enough to be rough. After Oak tended to his wounds, he tended to forget those encounters. There was no reason to remember such things. After all, it would be better use to remember the appearance of a safe and good-tasting piece of vegetation or the location of a steam grate to park himself on during the colder months.

As Oak had become sufficiently comfortable in his own way of life, he did still carry a nagging thought. He’d have liked to be able to climb Mount Everest. It was unknown at what point in life he came to want such an irrational thing, but all he knew was that it was something he longed for. He imagined the briskest, most fresh air freezing his whiskers and lungs as he breathed in, the undisturbed veil of snow laying infinitely before him. Unfortunately, this aspiration would require equipment and warmer clothing and an outrageous fee much more difficult to acquire than he cared to earn. Not to mention the transportation to get there. He could walk thirty kilometres a day and did not or could not shy away from physical toil considering his current lifestyle. Still, it was quite a distance away, to say the least, to that particular snowcapped mountain. A long journey to make all alone. Although Oak liked the way silence conversed with him and considered himself quite the adventurer, he was admittedly scared to venture out so far from his beloved forests and tunnels. All he had known for the past three decades were the glistening, yellow-green, algae-filled lakes and the blanketed evergreens that hid you away. It was frightening how quickly it would get dark as soon as sun sets in a forest, but he was used to their company and knew them like an old friend. His trusty axe and flint were no strangers to trees thunderously crashing down, crumbling into firewood, crackling into ash. If he were to venture out further than the perimeter outside the places he knew more than himself, he wanted it to be by following those unwavering train tracks — which led no where near his destination.

He closed a National Geographic magazine, Mount Everest glistened on its cover. After staring at the insurmountable thing, he thought it would be fine to die as long as he made it to its summit. But Oak had the good sense to learn the great perils and necessary preparations of such a journey in a musty public library, not dissimilar to the one he was currently squat in. He regularly traced his fingers along the glossy maps of winding trails and re-read pages of a survival almanac or encyclopedia during the frozen months in a town when there was not much to do. And because he had such knowledge, he knew in his state, it was impossible to make it up such a mountain even if he were to have the means. He had bear spray to protect against predatory creatures, but he had nothing to prevent him from the cold, crushing atmospheric pressure that comes from higher elevation. He had his wits and health under all that fur, albeit malnourished, but there was no training or resistance to protect his lungs from a lack of air. A most silent and dangerous killer.

Hard-pressed as Oak was, he was grateful it was because of an unreachable dream and not because of the Hard Times the Others all around grumbled and cursed about. He could not imagine being trapped in a crushingly small space, unable to roam where his heart desired. Or worse yet, having to toil away for comforts that only forced you to toil more.

Nature was dangerous, but it was also bountiful and beautiful. It filled his stomach as well as his lungs and eyes and ears and heart. He never knew the dead-set emptiness in the eyes of city folk or addiction like his mother or the anger seeped into his father’s bones or the inside of his brother’s casket. For a long time, he had wondered whether Oliver’s waterlogged body was heavier or the expectations that ultimately sunk him.

Even while Oak held worry that his next sleep or meal may never arrive, he felt both future and present were consistent and well-founded. His contingencies for water, food, warmth, and sleep were lacking by most people’s standards. But he felt most people’s standards would also tumble at the next unexpected misfortune just like his. Most people’s standards somehow didn’t allow them to be happy or free either. So, should unexpected occurrences happen and he were to go without, he knew that was simply the life he chose. If he were to be lost to the world, he would not lose anything, for he never had the things people cared to lose to begin with. In fact, he had all he needed to feel fulfilled and they were not things that could be taken away by death. The futures his contemporaries carried on their backs seemed much more burdensome than his own load — that of a thirty-pound backpack.