Forgiveness Woods

The sun has gone down. The air is becoming cold. It is dusk and the colors of the trees and the ragged shrubs underneath the trees have begun to dissolve into gray. The afternoon’s palette of lime and mossy greens and the once warm and grounding browns of the barks of things has cooled to my touch as I steady myself against this tree and then the next. The air is clammy. I turn my hot, damp face to the right and then to the left and each way I feel a coolness, like an anxious hand resting on my cheek. I left the lake too late. But the smell of my skin in the sun as I had rested my head on my arms had been so soothing. The feeling in my body of finally relaxing was intoxicating but I left the lake too late.

 I am running on the narrow dirt path now through the woods toward the cabin. The path isn’t flat. It’s like running in a dry canal. The sides come up almost together for a few feet and then part wide again. Parts of the path are soft with pine needles and quiet. Parts are just black dirt covered with small sticks that break with a loud snap as my feet fall on them. I’m trying to stay in the lines of the path, putting one foot directly in front of the other, almost falling forward as I run. I’m trying to stay my breath and be quiet to hear. It’s there again. There should be no one else in these woods and yet I hear it clearly. Someone is following me. Their footfalls keeping up with mine. Not gaining but not falling back. My heart is pounding but there is another pounding on the path behind me. If I twist my head to look around, I will surely lose my balance. I would rather keep running and not strain to see the twenty feet behind me than succumb to the fate of falling and finding out.

I begin to see the yellow back porch light glow through the trees and the straight dark edges of the cabin ahead. I can see the end of the path that empties out from the woods and onto the lawn. I’m almost there and now the long black shadows of the pine trees reaching out toward the cabin in the remaining lavender sunset look like tentacles. I run across them, half expecting to be pulled under by the darkness, panic rising as I get closer to the wooden porch steps that lead to safety. The pounding grows louder as I lengthen the space between my strides and then jump to the first step, skip the second and land hard on the third. Reaching for the screen door, sure that I won’t have the time to bring it toward me and get around and inside, but as I touch the metal handle and pull, the pounding stops and there is silence. As I swing my body around the doorframe and slam the screen door shut again, I squint out into the growing night, my heart a separate beast in my chest, I see nothing. There is no person. No animal. No silhouette against the faint light. No sound. It has happened again. Again, I do not understand it. Again,

I lock the door of the cabin, push the chair up under the handle. I hurry to each of the five windows to make sure they are locked tightly and pull the cotton calico curtains roughly across the rods to cover the darkness outside the glass. I fill a glass with water, sip slowly and stand at the sink until the beast calms under my breast. Chiding myself for leaving the lake too late, I sit back down at my table, spread with old, colored and unfolded maps and handwritten notes, and as the pace of my breathing begins to ease, I pick up my pen and begin again. I try to concentrate on the plans for each of my foci and their specials but cannot get the sense of dread out of my throat. As if it’s alive and crawling, it travels down the length of my arm and into my hand where the dread trembles in my fingers. Setting my pen down again, I shake out my hands and bring them to my still dry mouth and blow, breathing warmth into them.

This shaken feeling feels unacceptable and too familiar. Shuffling through the papers on the table, I find my notes marked, “Harry” and hold them in my hands remembering my purpose. I wait for the inevitable fear to shift into fury. My cells seem to rearrange themselves and I am quite suddenly not afraid again and I walk back over to each window and jerk the curtains open, sneering at whatever might be hovering on the other side of transparency that separates us. 

              “Go ahead, fuckers. You do not scare me. Not anymore” I spit the words toward the window and wait, like a challenge I’ve accepted from an enemy. I wait and when nothing happens a flood of endorphins bloom through my chest and I grin, turning away from the glass as if it is a weak and beaten bully. I circle the inside perimeter of my small cabin, my hands on my hips, taking exaggeratingly big steps, making as much noise as I can stomping each foot down on the wooden floor. I sing loudly words that make sense. Just sounds. I finally stop in the middle of the living room. I can see the whole of my cabin from this viewpoint. I can see that I am the only one here. I make all the decisions here. I can speak any words, in any volume, with any tone, with any attitude, with any look on my face here. This is my place. My space. I make the rules. And, as I finally sit back down at my table, pick my notes and my maps, I feel the feeling that I live for, that I work for and that I will fight to the death for. I feel free. I am free.