A Black Tree And A Field Of Crimson

I sit in front of a campfire, the heat warding off the night’s chill as cicadas and laughter floats around me on a gentle breeze. Music starts to play and I realize Dad had picked up his guitar, strumming while my Mom starts to hum along. In a matter of moments, my entire family is singing, the noise drowning out the bugs and scaring away the critters. Everyone is here, my grandparents, my uncles, my aunts, my cousins, and all of my friends. Their voices blend together in the song, the night stealing away their features but for what the fire’s light can briefly retrieve. Uncle Mike’s worm-like mustache. Grandma’s long, wiry brown hair blowing in the wind. 

My older brother sits on a camping chair across the fire, humming along as he roasts a hotdog on a poker. A log cracks in the fire, sending embers dancing into the darkness like miniature stars. They reach for their brethren only to tumble into the grass, some never even make it there. My brother pulls his hotdog out of the fire, so dark that the only reason I can see against the backdrop of the night is because my brother is between them. His eyes flick up to me, and for a moment, I can see him clearly in the firelight. Eyes such a deep blue that they would give the ocean a run for its money. A grin turned up at one side so it seems that he’s mocking you when he’s genuine, and wild brown hair that he never could seem to tame like I can. The fire’s light catches on the letters stitched in gold with a white background on the front of his varsity jacket, W H S.

Just as fast as it flared, the blaze dropped to a flame and I could no longer see my brother. I turn to ask Mom for a marshmallow so I could make a s'more but I pause, unable to make out her figure in the darkness. It’s quiet, Dad had stopped strumming, everyone had stopped singing. Even the cicadas had disappeared. I turned to my brother but he, too, was gone.

* * *

My eyes flutter open, greeted by the colorless dawn. I lay there for a long time, looking back and trying to recover the memory before realizing it wasn’t a memory at all but a dream. It had been so long since I had dreamed of anything that I didn’t think it was possible anymore.

I lay there until black lightens to grey and the sun could be seen behind the misty haze of clouds and ash. My stomach grumbles, reminding me that I haven’t eaten in days. I sit up with a groan, twisting my head in every direction in an attempt to work out the crick. I massage the back of my neck with one hand as I search through the messenger bag at my hip with the other. I take the bag off and dump its contents on the dirt: Dad’s hunting knife tucked in its sheath. A half-full water bottle. A deck of faded bicycle cards with a flimsy box. A yo-yo missing its string. A broken mermaid snowglobe, the glass is gone along with anything that had been floating inside it and one of her hands is missing. A large black sharpie. And a children’s book, the pages bent and yellowed from time and misuse.

Finally, I found half a bag of beef jerky. I bite into one of the strips and let out a cry of pain. Running my tongue over my aching teeth, I find multiple holes edged into them. I sigh and look at the dirty bag again, contemplating how hungry I am. My stomach screams at me for taking so long. I cut the jerky slice into small pieces so I could eat without chewing. I tuck the rest of my things back into the bag and lean back on the ground. The sky drifts between shades of grey, the sun struggling to break through and inevitably losing the fight.

As I eat, I think back on the dream. We used to have family campfires every now and again during the summer but I can't ever remember having one with the entire family. It was always just me, Mom, Dad, and my brother… my brother. What was his name again? I search my skull but can’t find a trace of his name, all I can remember is that flash of his face from my dream. I remember even less about Mom and Dad. Dad had rough hands and liked to play the guitar. Mom loved to sing while he played and every year she would bake birthday cakes for me and my brother, but otherwise, you wouldn’t find her anywhere near the kitchen. That’s about all I can remember.

I swallow a few more slips of jerky and close my eyes, struggling to put a name to this face. It irritates me more than it should. I mean, it's just a name. I don’t even remember my own so why should his matter so much?

I shake off the annoyance, tucking the dream away for another time. A rough wind crashes through the ditch like a title wave, bringing with it the stench of something rotting. I turn away from the wind and bring up the collar of my jacket over my mouth and nose, squeezing my eyes shut until the wind dies down and I can breathe again. Usually, the smell of decay doesn’t bother me but it's never quite this strong. I put the bag of jerky away, my appetite stolen.

I pause then pull off the jacket. I hold the oversized jacket in my hands, looking over the faded red arms and greying body. In what I think used to be white and gold, the letters W H S are embroidered on the front. Hesitantly, I turn the varsity jacket around in my hands to look at the back. The first letter is missing but it's imprinted on the cloth.

Nathan.

I stare at it for the longest time, marveling at my own stupidity. It was here all along and I never even knew it.

“Na-a-ha-n-n.” My voice comes out rough from disuse and I’m not even sure if it was a word at all. I grimace at the sound but it doesn’t matter, I remember how it's supposed to sound. I can say it in my mind perfectly. Nathan. Nathan Wall. Nathan Wall, my brother. A small smile creeps onto my lips and I feel my skin crack.

Today is full of unfamiliarity. I stand up and put the jacket back on, somehow feeling safer knowing that it’s Nathan’s. He had always kept me safe. He was the one that picked me up when I scraped my knees and made everything feel better. I sigh and hug myself in his jacket as if that would somehow make me feel like he was the one hugging me.

I remember the tire swing, it hung in our backyard. Nathan and I used to rush home from school just so we could play on it. I’d sit in the swing and he’d push me then we’d trade-off. Though, I could never push him as high as he pushed me.

My eyes drift to the shadow climbing up the hill to my left. It's not the other hill… it's something on top of it. Something that looks strikingly familiar. A slight breeze makes the image shift, the thin lines dancing against the dirt. I shake my head, trying to remind myself of the split between reality and memories. I look back at the shadow then turn and race up the hill. I half climb, half stumble to the top of the hill, my bag bouncing against my thigh and back the entire time. I reach the top, throwing myself at what I had found.

A tree.

A real tree!

I thought the trees had all disappeared when I was a kid but here it is. A real, living tree. I press my face to the bark, feeling the roughness scratch my skin as I wrap my arms around it but my fingers can’t touch. A bubble escapes me than another, and unknown emotion rises up in me. I’m laughing, I’m actually laughing!

I turn my head up to look up at the emerald bush of leaves that I remember so well from my childhood to find it bare. I pause, the sudden zap of glee wavering. I slowly let go of the tree, taking a few stumbling steps back. I raise a hand to my cheek and attempt to brush off the wood chips but it comes off in a smear of black. I look at my hand, baffled by the sight. My gaze moves slowly back to the tree, colored black with rot. The column of rot stands tall, its branches reach up to the sky in what I had thought was an almost joyful way but now seems frozen. Forced to stand the test of time even after death.

My eyes stray from the tree to the secret it had been protecting. A crimson field stretches out on its other side, its end nowhere in sight. Not a field of wildflowers or wheat. But a field of bodies. Human corpses in every state of decay.

The wind picks up suddenly and the scent smacks me in the face. I lost my stomach on the dirt before I had a chance to stop it. I fall to my hands and knees, jerky bits sitting in a pool of dirt and stomach sludge. There’s nothing left to come up but my body betrays me as if it was trying to rid itself of the stench. I force myself away from the field and tumble down the hill, back to the protection it had offered for the night. I had slept an entire night next to such an atrocity and hadn’t even known.

I lay in the ditch, panting and waiting for my body to realize it was in no danger. I look up the hill but from this angle, I can't see the tree. So I look at the opposite hill, at the sentinel’s shadow.

I breathe through my mouth, the image refusing to leave my mind and almost sending me into another bout of dry retching. Those were once people, living humans. They had families, lives… I lean back against the hill once again, consoling myself with the thought that they never saw what this world has become. They can’t smell what I just did. I reach into my bag and pull out the children’s book, something Nathan had given me as a present. It was about a superhero who saved the world from danger with his superpowers of flight and laser vision.

Superpowers… if they had been real, would the world have turned out like this? Maybe I have a superpower of my own and don’t even realize it because no one else is around to tell me they can’t do that. I look back up the hill, towards the field but am only able to see the divide between brown and grey.

I know what my superpower is, something that no one else on earth can do. Something that makes me unique.

I can breathe.