Other Living Things

I have one book to write in my lifetime. The idea that anyone might read it is terrifying and the only reason I’m still alive.

                A seemingly infinite number of silhouettes flew past the passenger window as Sam tried to count them all. His elbow grew sore as he started to question which contrasts in the darkness represented negative space and those of actual trees. The vertical lines lost form and blurred in and out of focus. He could feel himself fighting to straighten the objects in his optic nerve. He took a deep breath and consciously let go, causing them to spiral wildly in every direction and reappear in their original abject perfection.

                Sam was always uneasy on forest roads. When he was eight years old his grandfather told him that trees hold souls waiting to be reborn, that’s why they seem to be more alive than other living things. After that he could hear them speaking, as if the only requirement for communication is belief, and in every knot or bending branch he saw a face.

                In the summer before high school he went on a camping trip with the boy scouts. It was mid August and they slept under the stars. Hours after the embers of the campfire faded, Sam woke surrounded by sound of screaming. He reached for his flashlight and cast an arc of light across the forest floor. Everyone else was still sound as sleep as the screams of horror grew in intensity all around him.

                Through the agony he could discern a much smaller, closer, sound but was unable to pinpoint even which direction it came from but in time recognized it indistinguishably as crying. His body was suspended in paralysis between fear of the known and the unknown. He took a deep breath and consciously let go.

                With a sniffle the crying transitioned to words, “Is someone else awake?”             

                “Tyler? Is that you? Are you okay?”

                Tyler’s face was swollen and wet as he rounded his body in Sam’s direction. “I got scared, but the leaders said it was nothing before they wandered off with the lanterns.”

                “Nothing?! There’s obviously something, people don’t scream like that over nothing.”

`               The liquid left Tyler’s voice as he lunged himself out of bed, “You hear them too! They told me I was delusional and to go back to bed.”

                “Well, if you’re delusional than so I am, because there’s no denying that sound. It’s how I’d imagine people sound when they’re being burned alive.”

                Sam redirected the light up into the branch above them. They all swayed in subtle agony without a breeze. He steadied the beam and focused on a single form in the bark. It shifted and took the shape of a woman’s face. Her eyes were hollow and the skin hung on her cheeks like soft leather on a bleached skull. The bark stretched itself, loosely forming a neck from which she looked down at the boys.

                The next night the forest burnt to the ground.