Change In Narrative

The first snow fell overnight. Frozen dust piled up on the bare branches, forming a white coat of icy beauty that granted the woods where I lay hidden an eerie magical quality. So soft was the path of the snowflakes from the skies to the ground, it almost felt as though they weren’t moving at all, suspended mid-air.

Yet, every now or then, the calls of the search party woke me up to remind me that there was nothing enchanted about the woods at all. In fact, their heavenly costume concealed their true nature: hell. A hell I was meant to wander in until I no longer found the strength to, trapped behind wooden bars and buried under rains of embers and brimstone.

“Leech! We know you’re here somewhere. Surrender now, the quicker the better.”

The voice sounded dangerously close, and suddenly I knew how it felt for a prey to hear the voice of the hunter. The course of action was in no way well defined. If I stood and ran away, the crack of the twigs under my feet would quickly alert them to my presence; if I did not, they would step over my trembling body in a matter of minutes.

I chose the only alternative I could think of. At a glacial pace, I made my way up the tree right next to me, hiding my body behind its thick trunk as ascending with careful steps towards the upper branches. I feared one of them might break and expose me, but luck was in my favor. Within five minutes, I found myself in a safe spot, tucked in between the maple tree’s main arteries, hidden from sight. The pulsation of my blood almost came to a stop, just like the movement of the sap through the body of my protector. The search party was now right beneath me, walking over the ground where I hid mere moments ago.

“C’mon Leech, don’t make this difficult for us,” said a man dressed in police gear. “You’re outnumbered. You won’t make it.”

Another scruffy man in a plaid shirt and overalls underneath, whom I recognized as my neighbor Bill, made his way to the policeman as the rest of the party dispersed to search in other directions.

“Forget it Chief,” the scruffy man said. “He’s a coward. Always has been, always will be. If anything, we’ll find his corpse when it thaws in the spring.”

“What’s up with the attitude Bill?” replied the police chief. “We have to catch him. The press is out there waiting for answers, and they won’t get to say we failed, not on my watch. Have you seen these headlines?”

The chief pulled a folded newspaper from under his belt and showed the front page to Bill, who simply raised his shoulders and shrugged.

“You can’t do nothing about cowards Chief, it’s not on ya. Lots of murderers out there, but the worst ones are those who think they can just run away. How can you even live with yourself after doing this to your daughter?”

With a grunt filled with anger and resentment, the chief threw the newspaper on the frosty ground and spit on it all of his disdain for the man under the headline.

“Must be a heck of a devil,” said the Chief. “Alright, let’s not fall behind. The boys need us at the front.”

Both men walked away, following the footsteps left behind in the snow by the rest of the party. I sighed, but whether it was a sigh of relief or a sigh of torture, I could not tell. With the same amount of carefulness, I made my way down from my refuge and dashed to pick up the newspaper.

There was my face on the front page. A distorted, sinister version of my face. Over it read in bold letters: “STILL ON THE LOOSE: For a thirteenth consecutive day, police fails to apprehend 42-year-old man accused of murdering his daughter in the woods; manhunt still underway.”

I knew the truth, but the lies still hurt. These papers never got to ask me about my version of the events. Had they, I would have told them how a police officer pulled us over by the side of the highway when I was barely five miles per hour over the limit; how he forced us out of our car for no reason, just because I stood up for myself.

I would have told them how he shot at us, and how we had to run into the woods to protect ourselves; how a bullet hit my daughter from afar; how I carried her with me as much as I could, until there wasn’t enough blood left in her to keep going; how my beloved daughter, the most precious gift I ever had, the diamond that shimmered above all other gems, drew her last breath in my arms, her dimples vanishing from her inanimate cheeks forever.

By then, there was nothing to be done. The cop’s version of events had prevailed. I was a dangerous fugitive who had abducted my daughter into the woods with grisly plans. Her body was found, and of course I was the easy scapegoat. I couldn’t possibly come out of hiding to clear my name, for public enemies don’t typically get warm welcomes. And so I ran, and ran, and ran again, until the trees had shed their last leaves. Until the sky had dropped its first snowflakes.

The more I read the headline, the more powerful my simmering rage became. Never before had I thought life could turn around so quickly. Weeks ago, I was a loving father, a model of kindness and care. Now, public opinion and false claims had shaped the narrative of a murderous madman targeted by a manhunt. The story had gone too far, and I couldn’t rewrite it.

“He’s here!”

I turned, my body shaken by violent convulsions. In the distance, a volunteer pointed at me. It would take seconds for the whole party to converge on me. Once again, I ran, quicker than I ever had. It wasn’t hard to know whether I was pursued or not without having to looking back: a constant stream of calumnious insults reached my ears almost instantly.

“COWARD!”

“BASTARD!”

“SCOUNDREL!”

“YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED INSTEAD!”

“FILTHY MURDERER, COME BACK HERE!”

“WE KNOW THERE’S BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS.”

My running was forced to come to a stop. In front of me, at the edge of the woods, towered a steep, rocky cliff. I did not see any way out. The screams were getting closer, and it felt as though their hands already had a hold of me. No. This wasn’t going to happen.

If they caught me, my swift and wrongful condemnation would cement their narrative forever. I glanced at the other side of the cliff. For a fleeting moment, I thought I saw her on the other side, with those dimples beaming at me. I chose freedom. And so with a heavy heart, heavy head, and heavy soul, I jumped.