I Will Leave It All Behind

I hate feeling powerless.

Maybe that's why I hate this town—because every time I’m home, I become powerless. All of the independence, the growth, the fresh air that filled my lungs when I was away—it all just disappears. I regress into that ugly, misshapen form of the scared little girl I was. Maybe I still am that scared little girl. Maybe that’s all I ever will be.

I’m that angry little kid again, locked away in a room with memoirs of childhood pasted on posters on the walls, stuffed into toy boxes, shoved in a haunted closet full of tiny clothing with memories—the good and bad—woven into the threads. The frustration, the hormones, the tears, and the anger come rushing back, pounding into my head, entering my system in every lungful of air I breathe.

It’s stifling. So stifling. I can hardly breathe. Sometimes I wonder if I’m even breathing at all.

Then, those scared little girl feelings—those insuppressible urges and desires and emotions and thoughts—all come bubbling to the surface. It’s those wants to slide open my bedroom window as my parents snore softly in the room next door. It’s those wants to slip through that open window, rushing into the cold, winter’s night and run as fast and as far away as I can, letting the snowy, bitter wind bury the town behind me. It’s those wants to leave it all behind.

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The icy snaps of wind greet me as I crawl out the window and push myself onto the frigid grass outside. Cowering against the pummeling wind, I dash across the yard towards the truck that sits on the sidewalk. The air is crisp and cold as I take in deep breaths: a lungful of rebellion, a lungful of autonomy. Above me, clouds roll across the sky, painting over the stars and every light that sits in the cosmos, making the earth a pure, unadulterated black.

My numb fingers fumble and drop the keys as I unlock the truck. It’s a small, old pickup, 1970s style (if you don’t consider that old enough to be considered old, go read a different story), and the metal frame shakes and groans as I turn the key. The headlights strain and pop on—thin and yellow, like ancient lanterns—and dimly light up the street. The wheels roll me out.

Onto the road. In a small town with old people and old ideas, there is not a soul about to wander through the night. Everyone is in their beds, safely sleeping, dreaming about which mug they’ll use for coffee before going to church in the morning.

The streetlights glare at me as I drive down the road, towering with a humming wrath as I disturb the silence of the sleeping town with my clanking and sputtering jalopy. For some reason, I worry that one of the light poles might suddenly collapse down into the street and crush me in my car. I try to ignore it, brushing it off as a frivolous, irrational thought, but I still take extra care to drive straight and lawfully, staying well within the lines, paying homage to the flickering red signs, lest I give more reason to suffer the streetlights' wrath.

I turn on Main Street and roll past the bakery, where tea in Mason jars and loaves of homemade bread sleep behind glass counters, waiting to be bought in the morning. I drive past the antique stores, where old books and chipped porcelain and rusty candelabra lay in clutters on creaking vintage dressers and tables, waiting to be bought by some grandma or old soul in the morning. I drive past all the things that lay in wait and turn onto the dirt pathway that leads to the train tracks.

The train is the only way out of this town. The tracks wind through the land where clocks reverse and its people hold their breath, scared of the coming change; the tracks trek past the small town and through the deserts and into the cities, where I remember urban lights instead of stars burn through the nighttime sky.

Friend is already waiting for me as I park my truck parallel to the tracks. She smiles, brushing away her hair that whips in her face from the wind. And I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show. You ready?

I nod.

Friend is my friend because she, like me, is powerless. She has big words and big ideas and big emotions—far too big for this small town. When I was away, in that other place that is far from here, she would tell me stories of her days spent wandering the streets, walking from one end to the other, testing the town’s lengths and limits. She said that if she didn’t walk the streets, she would have gone insane. I must run as far as I can, she had told me. Even if it is simply to the other end of the cage.

Someday I’m going to take Friend far away from this place. We’ll drive off, far into the city where the lights burn through night and day. If she doesn’t want to drive to the city, we’ll drive to the forest, where we’ll talk to the trees and wear crowns of pine in our hair. If she doesn’t want to drive to the forest, we’ll drive to the sea, where we’ll skinny dip in the ocean and sleep under blankets of sand. If for some reason the day we decide to leave be the day my old clankard of a truck decides to putt out its last, I swear, we’ll walk the whole goddamn way until we get there.

After a few minutes of standing against the cold, I feel the metal tracks begin to rumble against the earth. Its vibrations buzz against my skin and hum on the wall of my lungs. The train’s yellow headlights look like tiny dots at first, as small as fireflies, but grow bigger and bigger until I see the shadowy outline of the rolling machine in the darkness. Its horn blares, announcing its arrival, indifferent to the hushed lethargy of the small town.

I love the train. It’s my reminder that there is more than this—that there is still a world that exists beyond the city limits and that world waits for me to return.

Let’s do this, Friend says, digging her shoes into the dirt, grounding herself for what’s to come. The gleam in her eye glows like fire as she stares down the moving train. I shiver, knowing her for what she means us to do.

A moment passes. And then another. Then Friend sprints forward, dragging me with her, dashing headfirst towards the moving train until she finally yells, Jump!

We’re in a boxcar. It’s dark inside. My fingers shake as I pull out a match. Just as I’m about to strike it against the cardboard pack to light, Friend snatches it from my hand.

There’s no need to light the match…Not yet, anyways. We have all the light we need already.

She points to the sky that sweeps outside the open doors of the boxcar. The clouds part against the black ether, like tearing fabric, and the stars shine through, burning away the night.

I can’t see the stars in the city. There are too many cars and street lights, too many lamps shining in the windows of tiny urban homes, too many people with their modern lives that emit a metropolitan light so powerful that even when night befalls the city, the sky remains lit.

Sometimes, I wonder: when I’m back in the city where the stars don’t shine, will I miss this small, wretched town where they do? I wonder if, despite my hatred of standing amidst the gravel roads and mourning winds and falling leaves of Tehachapi, there would still be a part of me that would miss standing in that complete, utter darkness that is not found within the lights of the city, and looking up and seeing those flaming stars, lighting up a map in the skies to whatever, if anything, lies beyond this town.

Don’t let the stars distract you! Friend shouts in my ear. She’s by my side, frantically shaking my shoulders. Don’t look up so much that you forget to look where you are going! We must jump off the train! Jump now!

Before I respond, Friend pushes me out of the moving train. I soar through the abyss, falling a million miles a second, and hit the ground, tumbling down the hill through dirt and bushes and everything is a blur around me and I’m crashing through the earth and I can’t see and I can’t scream and I can’t breath and I can’t think.

It is glorious.

The stars spin above me as I splay out at the bottom of the hill. The hurt from the fall hasn’t kicked in. Not yet. Friend is lying on the ground next to me. I grab her hands and pull her up.

The fire is waiting for us in the forest, she says, out of breath. We must find it.

She slips her arm through mine, and leads me to the shadowy treeline that stretches out from the bottom of the hill. Timber like biblical leviathans tower over us. I hesitate, searching for sounds from the forest, but find nothing—only the darkness that weaves around the trees, penetrating like a black smoke. I’m scared, I whisper. I can’t see anything beyond the treeline.

There are two options, Friend says. We either go forward, or we go back. Which one scares you more?

I breathe in, wondering what monsters may lurk in the shadows between trees. I breathe out. We walk into the woods.

Red, brown, orange leaves flutter to the ground as we walk. Twigs and dirt crunch under our feet. Starlight streams through the leafy canopies, lighting the way along the path for us. The forest is neither as dark nor as quiet as I thought it would be. Arm in arm, Friend leads me through earth-forged paths deep into the woods. After what feels like an eternity of walking and throbbing feet, Friend stops between a cluster of trees. She points to the ground.

Half-buried in the earth, a fire pit sticks out its head from the ground. The pit’s metal frame is rusted and ancient, an emblem of our forefathers whose meaning has been lost to the ages. Friend walks up to it and gently grazes her fingers against the old metal. Bits of the surface crumble away. The ashes from previous fires have all gone cold now, and what remains is a soft, gray char piling in the bottom of the pit.

Help me gather wood, Friend says.

We venture out, scouring the earth for limbs and leaves to burn. Friend goes deep into the darkened forest to search, but I stay near the pit, where patches of moonlight streaming through the canopies gently light the area around it. I gather an armful of twigs while Friend drags over a few heavy logs and we pile them inside the pit. Digging into her coat pocket, she pulls out a box of matches.

You light the fire.

Before I can protest, she shoves the box into my hand and backs away, watching with attentive, wary eyes as I turn it in my hand. It’s the same match box that I tried to light on the train.

My fingers shake as I open the cardboard pack, carefully selecting the lone match in the box, and strike it across the surface. Immediately, a small, red flame ignites between my fingers. The warmth tingles against my cold skin. Slowly, I begin to walk towards the pit.

As I walk, the wind weaving between the branches of the trees begins to pick up. Bitter nips of cold bite at my cheeks. The wind whips around my hair and out of the dark, a sudden gust pounds against me, almost knocking me down.

I call out to Friend against the sudden storm, but the wind carries away my words. All around me, the tempest of forest devils picks up the earth from the floor, pelting it through the air until everything that surrounds me is a storm of dust, leaves, and twigs. Salty tears burn in my eyes as I search for Friend, but only her shadowy outline is seen, struggling against the sudden storm.

Carry the flame! Friend cries out. All that’s left of her is a voice, a shouting out of words against the impenetrable storm. Always carry the flame, no matter how much it may waver.

Struggling against the wind, I lower the match into the pit, waiting for it to walk onto the wood and catch.

The flame looks up at me, wide-eyed, scared, and uncertain. I just walk out onto that log and it’ll catch? she asks. What if it doesn’t catch fire? What if I walk onto that wood and it doesn’t catch and I become just another wisp to be carried on in the wind? What if my flame burns out?

The wind blows even harder. Flame cowers. Her burn falters.

My ears search for the voice of Friend, but nothing can be heard over the storm. Waves of white, hot fear surge through me. I think of what in the world I would do if Friend’s words were not there to tell me how to carry a flame. I think of what she might think if my flame burns out. I think of what I might think if I realize that I could have never carried a flame at all.

Desperate, I get down to my knees on the floor, sticking my head close to the dying fire in my hand. My hair whips around me and Flame, creating a barrier between us and all the rest of the world. Here and now, it is just us. I whisper words to her. The words come slipping off of my tongue, pouring out of my mouth. I don’t think about what I say to her. I don’t even know what I say to her. All I know is that the words are slipping and slipping and they won’t stop.

Your flame is going to burn out either way. No matter how bright or how dim your fire may be. We all burn out eventually. But once your flame goes out, that’s it. What’s done is done. You can’t burn ash and we will all soon be left to the dust.

I don’t care how small or big your flame may be. Just burn. That’s all I ask. Don’t burn out having never burned at all. Step onto the pyre. Leap onto the wood. Don’t die not having taken the step. Then—and only then—can we see if our flames will catch.

Flame breathes in, looking at me with fearful eyes. She breathes out. Clenching her fist and closing her eyes, she steps from the match onto the wood.

It catches.

A beautiful, red fire bursts onto the wood. It dances, lighting the forest and drifting up in curls of smoke towards the treetops. Flame’s hands reach out into the air, grabbing the woodland storm in a fiery fist and devours it, swallowing the evil down her roaring throat.

Immediately, the storm ceases. Shadows of branches amidst orange flame crawl across the forest floor like spiderwebs. The smell of burning logs waft through the air, replacing the suffocating stench of dust. Smoke weaves through the leaves and branches, snuggling up against my skin, gently warming me.

Friend lets a cheer out into the nighttime sky. Her voice echoes through the forest, rumbling off the leafy canopies and reverberating off the stars. She runs up to me, clasping my hands in hers, and twirls me around the fire. We dance and we shout and we chant and we sing. She holds me tight in her arms and I hold her tight in mine. I know I am happy. I know I am safe.

Let’s stay here, I tell her in an out-of-breath whisper. Let’s stay here, dancing around the fire and never go back to that wretched town again. This can be our new home. The sun will never rise and we’ll stay here forever, forging flames for eternity under the stars. Let’s just leave it all behind.

Friend stops dancing and looks at me with kind but serious eyes. You know we can’t do that. We have no control over where we are.

But we have some control over where we go.

Friend smiles at me. She kisses my forehead.

Wherever you are, wherever you go, whether it be the town or the city or the forest or the sea, you will be okay. I promise you this. You will be okay. You will be just fine. I promise you this.

She takes my hand and holds me close. The fire crackles and roars in the rusty pit beside us. The forest burns, surrounding us in a beautiful, fierce light. Above us, the stars burn throughout the nighttime sky, for they have burned before us and will burn for a long time after. Friend’s skin burns against mine, hot and warm from the flames we have kindled. I burn too. And finally, I understand: someday my flame will go out and I will be but another dust in the pile of ashes. Yet, I burn anyway. That’s why I burn.

And in this forest as we dance under treetops and fiery wood, or by the sea where we swim under water and moonlight, or in the city where we walk on concrete under neon lights, or in the old town where we sit in silence under stars and memory, I know that I will be okay.

Wherever I am, wherever I go, I will be okay. I will be just fine. I promise you this. You will be okay.