Across The Creek

The woods look warm, and inviting. The sun streams through the trees and shines through onto the fallen leaves and pine needles. It looks as if the forest is glowing, or on fire. Past the glowing trees and the squirrels weaving in and out of the tree tops, there is a creek, and well, beyond the creek? Beyond the creek is dangerous, and unknown. 

This is what Fay sees as she looks off the deck of her grandparents cabin. She’s been visiting the cabin every year, for a week, each June, since she was four. She has explored what seems like every inch of the woods, except across the creek. The forest across the creek has always intrigued her, and on this particular morning it has really spiked her interest. It’s unclear whether it's the fruit salad her Grandma has made every day this week for breakfast, or the forest itself, but no matter the cause, it calls to her. Maybe it’s the fact that she knows she is not supposed to go across the creek. Things that are off limits always seem to be more appealing than things that are. 

Fay says bye to her Grandma Bell and in response her Grandmother tells her to be back by noon for lunch. Fay runs out the house, down the stairs, her grandmother slapping her hand to her head sarcastically because she's told Fay not to do that a hundred times for fear of broken bones. Fay slows her pace, and gazes up into the treetops, she breathes deep, the fresh, forest air fills her lungs. She takes in her surroundings, she has been out in this part of the forest a million times before, but that's the beautiful thing about nature. It is completely unpredictable in its ways. Something is always different anytime she explores the woods she's been in so many times, she can’t rely on anything to be the same as it once was. Fay then sets her sights on the creek and begins trudging through the forest.

Blackberry brush lines the side of the creek Fay is on. She walks up to the grove of blackberry brush littered with red berries as they are not quite ripe yet. She lifts her gaze to the other side of the creek and sees what looks like paradise to her. A place that she has yet to explore, pristine nature, untouched by her eyes. She looks back down at the brush she must wade through to reach her utopia and carefully begins to walk through it. The thorns of the brush cling to her but she is fueled by curiosity and determination. Eventually, she makes it to the other side, but not unscathed. Fay looks down at her legs, now bloody from the scratches. But she has reached the water and can see through to the other side, she washes her legs off in the cool water that flows down from the mountain. Then Fay does something she has never dared do before. She crosses the creek. 

Fay stands atop the sandy bank of the creek, and stares out at the forest deciding what her next move will be. She decides that the best idea would be just to walk, isn’t that the purpose of exploring? To see something new and entirely unexpected? She walked for only a matter of minutes, (or were they hours?) when she stumbles across a clearing. The light of midday shines through the trees, and illuminates the small field. 

Fay approaches it, it’s filled with wild flowers, daisies and poppies that sing with the song of bees. She enters the clearing and spots a ginormous tree. It towers over the field, but it's not scary or dark in nature. It’s much like the forest, it's warm and inviting, and it draws her close, pulling her towards it, until she’s right up close. Fay looks up into the branches, which seems to be home to all manners of forest creatures, all living in harmony. She reaches out to the tree, eager to touch it, but she stops short. Her hand suspended in the air, the tree which once looked serene in its enormity is now intimidating and casts a shadow of doubt over Fay’s once carefree mind. 

“It’s just a tree. How bad could it possibly be?” Fay thinks to herself, and she places her hand on the tree. 

All at once, Fay feels like she’s falling, or floating? She opens her eyes but cannot see, she calls out but cannot speak, she tries to run but gains no distance. She is trapped. 

Then, all is calm, a peace like she’s never felt before overcomes her, and she opens her eyes. Fay is greeted by a majestic landscape, flower fields and oceans, forest and desert. All coming together as one. She walks along, taking it in, she spots a leopard having lunch with a house cat.

“How funny” She thinks, separated by centuries of evolution, they can still work together to provide food for one another. Not to mention that they are having lunch, with china and everything. 

“Lunch!” Fay exclaims, she has forgotten about lunch! “Grandma will forgive me when she sees what a place I've stumbled upon! “

Fay continues to walk, and the further she gets into this strange land the more peculiar the sights. A monkey on a horse. A fox in the shallows of the ocean. A polar bear in the desert. And a zebra painting its stripes on. Just some of the many outrageous and uncanny sights Fay has seen so far. However, one thing all of these sights have in common. Is that there are no people, no people anywhere except for her yet the animals pay her no mind. Fay eventually makes it to a shady spot underneath a tree and sits down and almost as soon as she does, she is greeted by ants. A trickle of ants, all walking in a line moving quickly around her, too busy to care that she is in their way. The shade is soothing even though it’s not a hot day, and soon enough she drifts slowly off to sleep. 

A buzzing sound awakes her. Fay is greeted by a ladybug who lands on the tip of her nose. 

“You're blocking their way.” it says. 

“Excuse me?” Fay says, Did that ladybug just talk? 

“Yes, you are blocking their way, you need to move.” 

“I’m sorry!” Fay laughs looking down at the ants who are now able to resume their normal route, what else can she do but laugh? A ladybug just asked her to move! “What a peculiar dream!”

“Dream? This is no dream. I am just as real as you, if you're any real at all. I’m mother nature.” 

“Your mother nature? But! - you're a ladybug! How can you be mother nature!”

“Humans always think that something with any power, any meaning, at all must be large in size, well my dear, that is simply not true. In fact it is completely wrong, the smallest things, the things no one pays any attention to at all are the most important and powerful things in the world. What is your name?”

“Fay.” she says, stunned, Fay has no clue what to say. She’s never had a conversation with a ladybug before. 

“What are you doing here, Fay?, this is not a land where humans frequent. The last person if I remember correctly to ever see this place was a nice young man, I believe his name was Charles.”

“Charles. As in, Charles Darwin?” 

“Yes. That was his name! You know him?”

“In a way yes, yes I do. I came across a tree in the forest, it was huge and I reached out to it, that's how I got here.”

“Ah yes I know of that tree, I put one on every continent. For the animals of course, but over the years a few humans have snuck in as well. Follow me, I will return you to where you came from.”

Mother nature takes flight, Fay runs after her. Soon the ladybug notices Fay far behind her and stops. Fay continues to walk along a path that was not there before, in fact it appears in front of them as they move, and disappears behind them as she lifts her feet. The ladybug sits on her shoulder, small in size but extremely noticeable. Animals that once paid no attention to Fay, now silence themselves and watch her as she goes by, carrying Mother Nature.

“This place, nothing is as it should be.” Fay says, it's a statement but with the tone of a question. 

“No, everything is as it should be, nothing is as it seems.”

They continue to walk until the path stops, and Fay looks up. A tree just like the one she saw in the clearing appears in front of her, as if out of thin air. 

“This is it, and I’m afraid this is also goodbye.” The ladybug says. 

“What do you mean goodbye? Don’t you ever come to earth, to my land, the land you care for so deeply?” 

“Fay, I am the land, and the trees, the animals and the people. I am everything and everywhere all at once, all of the time. But I’m afraid in recent centuries people have not been kind to me, this is why I set up this safe haven for animals to escape to.”

“I hope that changes, thank you, Mother Nature for bringing me back home” Fay says as she reaches out to the tree, but the ladybug had already gone, disappearing into the wind. She was much too busy to be bothered by sorrowful goodbyes. 

Fay opens her eyes, and she is back. 

“Oh no! I’m late for lunch! I must’ve spent days in there!” Fay thinks as she races back through the forest, across the creek, through the blackberry brush and back up to the house. 

Fay bursts in the door, “I’m so sorry I've been gone! I really didn’t mean to be gone for so long, I got sidetracked and lost track of time!”

“Whatever do you mean?” Says Grandma Bell “You're just in time for lunch!”