The Clearing

“I wish you hadn’t ‘ave seen that,” the man in the oversized winter coat said with a slur.

“So do I,” I say. “More than anything…so do I.”

My hands rest in my jean’s pockets and my teeth begin to chatter. I can feel the watering from my eyes freeze on my cheek as a slow, white vapor fills the air in front of my mouth. The forest around me lays mostly in shadow and yet the brightness from the sun is blinding as it sets over the hilltop in front of me.

I am alone. The man in the oversized winter coat is no more than a memory. And yet I can almost see him again, walking out from underneath the canopy into the sunlight, spade in hand. I notice the blood on his fingers.

“I wish you hadn’t ‘ave seen that.”

Mark and I had not been hiking long. I doubt we were even a half mile from our campsite. Dad had just lit the charcoal and so we knew we had to be back soon for dinner. As usual, we had left the path behind and made our way up one of the few unexplored hillsides this side of the lake. That was when we found the small clearing – as well as the bloody knife that lay in the center of it.

My first thought was that it must be someone’s fillet knife. We never had a chance to examine it closer before we heard the rustling in the trees to our right. Then the man in the oversized winter coat walked out from underneath the canopy into the sunlight, spade in hand. I noticed the blood on his fingers.

“I wish you hadn’t ‘ave seen that.”

The man’s snow-white hair was thin and full, like cotton candy. His right eye twitched and the right side of his bottom lip drooped low. Beads of sweat covered his forehead.

“We…” I began to say before my stuttering began, “Did…did…didn’t see...see...see any…”

“How was your fishing?” Mark finally said, speaking over me. “Did you catch your limit?”

“Fish?” The man in the oversized winter coat asked, his right eye continuing to twitch.

“I saw the knife and just figured you had used it to clean your catch.”

“Yeah…yeah…fi…fish.” I said.

The man’s chuckle was unsettling. I had never heard a laugh like that – it sounded more angry than cheerful. He looked amused.

“I didn’ catch no fish, stupid kid.” He said, “I kill a man. Stab him in the leg right there were you standin’. Drag him o’er there before I slit his throat. Just finish digging the hole when you two turds snuck up on me.”

“I promise we won’t tell anyone,” Mark said. He sounded so confident. I had not realized that he had taken a few steps forward until his shoulder began to block my view of the man. “You’re right, we’re just a couple stupid kids – I’m 12, my brother here isn’t 10.”

I could no longer see the man’s face – but I remember the silence. I watched his leg – bowed out at the knee in a funny way.

“Let us just leave you be and you won’t hear from us again,” Mark continued confidently. “We don’t want any…”

I had heard the sound of a gunshot before. We had gone with our dad on plenty of his hunting trips. We even went with him to the range on occasion. But every shot I had heard before that moment was expected. I had time to brace myself.

Not this time. I never saw the man pull the gun. Never saw it in his hand. Just heard the shot – POP! Then the deafening silence that followed – the silence that has never quite left me.

I walk to the exact spot where my brother had fallen. There is no marking in the ground, no remnant of that terrible day and yet I can find the spot exactly. Despite the growth of the trees and the erosion of time, this clearing is forever known by me. I kneel to the ground and touch the dirt on which my brother took his last breath.

I gasp in an attempt to repress a sob. As soon as I compose myself I let out a scream. And then another. And another. I can hear my voice echo and resound through the forest and I find satisfaction that I am heard.

“Such pain,” a voice says in the darkness.

I jump to my feet and look around me.

“Such sorrow,” it speaks again. The voice is loud and yet almost inaudibly low and deep. “What could cause you such grief?”

“Who’s there?” I ask, only now detecting that the sun has finished setting, leaving me in the dark.

My eyes dart around the clearing before focusing directly at the spot where the man with the oversized winter coat had walked out from underneath the canopy. That is where he emerges – not the man who had destroyed my world but someone unlike any I have ever seen. He is dressed entirely in black, or at least it seems. Darkness surrounds him as if he is absorbing the shadow around us. His face is pale. Colorless. Formless. Indescribable. I would think him a ghost except somehow he seems more solid and tangible than anything else I have ever seen. Everything around us – including myself – appear to become comparatively thin. It is as if I am the ghost and he the one who is real, as if he is the only real thing in the world.

“Who…who…who…are…are…you?” I ask, stuttering for the first time since I was a kid.

“I could tell you but it would not answer your question – answer mine. What is your pain?”

“Why…why do you want to know?” I try looking into his eyes but discover that I cannot find them. They are lost in the paleness of his face. Yet somehow I still feel his gaze asking me to share my story. “I…this is where my brother died.” I finally say, “Right here beneath my feet – at the hands of a man who stood right where you stand.”

“And he did not kill you?”

“No…in a way, I guess he did. But no – I…I…I ran.”

The scene plays before me again. The sound of the gunshot had terrified me. I jumped and turned to run before Mark’s body hit the ground. Like a coward I ran. Somehow I was foolish enough to think that Mark was right behind me. I could hear his footsteps breaking twigs and smashing through the foliage. It was only when I heard the other shot did I realize it was the man in the oversized winter coat who was following me. The realization only made me run faster.

“I was a coward,” I say to the being before me.

“No…” he says it with a whisper. Although I cannot see his eyes, I assume they have closed. I hear a sound that almost sounds like humming before the deep voice resounds again – “You were only a child. Your brother was dead and there was nothing you could do for him. What you did was wise…though I am not the first to tell you this. Wisdom is no match for agony. And yet you have returned…why?”

The reasons are far too many to name – places and people who did not want to carry the grief with me. All I can say is: “To let go.”

“And who says you need to let go?”

“Essentially everyone,” I say.

“Well then everyone is wrong. Do not let go, my friend. Hold on. Use it to ensure that no one has to feel the pain you felt – that you feel. Hold on. It gives you power.”

“Who are you?” I ask again.

A hissing sound, which I assume to be a sigh, escapes his lips. “I have already told you that my answer would not answer your question…but since you insist – I am someone who can help you if you so wish?”

“How can you help me?”

“I can only answer by showing you…and if I show you, you will never be the same. I have walked the forests of Earth since long before all that is remembered. I give help sparingly and I never give it without a pledge of innocent trust – which might also be called desperation. If I touch your life, you will have power to ensure that others do not suffer in the way that you suffer.”

I eye him warily. His face is indistinguishable – as if there is so much detail to see that no detail can be seen. I can read no emotion, no hint of truth or falsehood. Finally I say, “And if I say no…?”

“Then I will leave you be. I will not harm you. You will never see me again.” Silence rests between us before he says, “I am offering you the power you did not have on that fateful day – the strength you have always grieved you do not have.”

“What do I have to do?”

For the first time I believe I am able to see a smile form on his lips as he says, “Nothing.”

Slowly he begins moving toward me. I cannot see his legs moving, nor does he appear to fly or hover. In each moment he is simply closer than he was in the moment before. Sweat begins to form on my brow despite the chill in the air. My breathing stumbles as he nears me. Without even realizing it, he is now less than a foot in front of me. Despite the closeness, I can no more make out his features than I could before. There is so much to see and take in that I cannot process any one thing.

“You have only to say the word,” he says.

The hairs on my arms begin to stand. A chill forms on my back. The coldness of the breeze is gone and I can feel warmth – power – radiating through the air. I clench my fists and I can feel strength that I have never felt before. My breathing steadies and my heart beats faster and more smoothly than I have ever felt it beat. I feel each beat. I feel the blood moving through my arteries and veins. I am alive.

I do not know what to say – but I want like I have never wanted before. Finally, the simple word, “Yes,” falls from my lips.

Everything becomes pure brightness and color. I somehow feel all the heat and coldness of the world simultaneously flow into my fingers and up my wrists before exploding throughout my whole being. I am larger than I have ever been. In a flash, I gain a glimpse of every corner of the forest. I see the deer lapping at the stream. I hear the cougar crying in the night. I smell the rotting prey of insects. And yet I have not grown larger – it is only that my awareness has surged. My beating heart slows – and then speeds up, the rhythm increasing and decreasing to my desire. I inhale and feel every molecule enter my lounges. I exhale and release a torrential wind.

In the midst of it all, I see and feel my grief like I never have before. I see the man in the oversized winter coat once again walking out from underneath the canopy. I hear the sound of the shot that the destroyed my world. I scream in fury as I watch the scene play out before me again. Only this time I do not run away. I hold on and stand my ground. Fear enters into the eyes of the man in the oversized winter coat as the gun flies out of his hand and into mine where it shatters into a thousand pieces. I simply hold up my hand with a clenched fist and he is brought to his knees.

Without taking a step I close the distance between us. I raise him to my eye level, his feet in the air. All the things I want to say to him. All the things I want to do. I try to tell myself it is not really him – only my imagination. He is only a memory. And yet somehow I know that what I do to this man in this moment will define who I am – more than the power and strength the man in the dark gave me – this will define my future.

As I look into the man’s eyes, I see confusion, madness, and terror. That is when I decide what to do with him. I take a good, long look at his face. I take in every detail, every blemish, every unshaved hair. I will remember him – I will remember this moment.

I close my eyes and then open them again. I am just a kid. No power. No strength. Just who I was on that day when the man standing before me in the oversized winter coat destroyed my world.

“I wish I hadn’t seen that either,” I say. “But I did see it. And I did see you. You killed that man. You killed Mark. You tried to kill me. I saw it all. I heard it all. It happened. It will never have not happened. I accept it. I accept you. I accept this place. I accept what happened. I accept that it’s over.”

With a snap of my fingers it all disappears and I am standing once again in the same clearing on a cold night. The man in the dark is gone but I can feel his gift within my very being. I take one last look around the forest. I take it all in knowing that I will never again set foot in this place. With a sigh, I turn around and begin my journey home.