They were there ever since i was a kid. Though back then i suppose the line of trees acting as a fence must have seemed like a forest to me. Now though, they are less impressive. Not so much a function of privacy but a means to decorate the driveway. The trees were tall and skinny, well they were tall when i was young. Now the trunks only rise till a foot or so above my head.
At the top of the trees the leaves would plume out creating a cloud of green that hardly blocked any sunlight from soaking the pavement. The trunks were so skinny that you could see right through them to the field of green grass and pastures. Hell you could easily walk right between them, a jail they were not.
I sat on my mothers porch, knees pressing down on my chest as i pulled a flame closer to my lips. Staring out at the line of trees there was a sense of whimsy i haven’t felt in quite some time. When was it last? That pop-up art installation? The carnival i happened upon while driving to see old friends? Even those feel like distant shadows now. Eyes nearly glazing over i glared into the spaces between the trees.
Smoke intermittently obscuring my view of the green rolling hills behind the fence of trees. I thought to myself. How curious that the trees still stood as i remembered them. They hadn’t seemed to grow at all and looked as if a stiff enough wind could bend them to it’s will. I pondered if perhaps they were fake, i then pondered why have them at all? It’s not like my mother really had neighbors, she was a fairly secluded woman.
Makes me think i should have been there more often near the end. Sat on the steps with her a few more times. I wonder if there are stories she had that i’ve never heard… that i’ll never have the chance to hear. It’s been the one thing keeping me confined to this house, it feels as though if i sell it, i’ll have lost that last bit of her. That final untold story drifts away in legal documents and signatures.
My thumb had been caressing the paper in my hands so long that i had nearly become numb to the sensation, something like breathing. A picture my mom had put onto the fridge, it must have been up there for ages. A drawing i had made when i was young, it was of me sitting in front of the line of trees. Though instead of the green pastures i peered at through the occasional wisp of smoke, there were more trees. As if as a kid, i imagined a forest beyond that green fence.
I don’t remember anything like that. I guess i don’t really remember much of my childhood, though i did play around the trees a lot. Running in and out of them like i was a show dog setting a personal best. As i sat mulling over what i should do with the homestead behind me, lord knows i could use the money; the sun started dipping down. The rolling green beyond the trees became a duller shade of blue under the approaching night sky.
Watching the tones shift i watched as a small dot of yellow appeared in the grass just beyond the trees. It was a lightning bug, use to watch them come to life all the time. Mom would hand me a cup of juice and we would try to count how many we saw. Some nights we’d have to give up counting, small lanterns lifting by the dozens. Though this night i could only see the one bug creeping through the air.
My eyes tracked it as it danced around above the grass, dipping in and out of visibility as it drifted behind the trees like we were playing peek-a-boo. Sky growing darker the bead of yellow was easy to spot, so it was a curious sight to see it flicker out for a moment. Not because it went behind on the the trees, it just briefly vanished. Framed perfectly by the gap between the thin trees i watched as the lightning bugs glow continued to momentarily go out before returning.
The more i watched it the more it seemed as if something was blocking it, like it was floating behind an obstruction. Straining my eyes i wondered if maybe my gaze shifted enough i had lost track of the trees. But i knew, there shouldn’t be anything beyond the trees except those flat pastures. With the porch light switching on i again, was bewildered to see that the glow coming from the light above my head, wasn’t penetrating the line of trees.
My mother had installed a pretty strong light that would always switch on around eight. That way if she was coming home late she would be able to see if any critters were snooping around the walkway or hiding behind the fence of trees. So the light would always bask the yard and peak through the trees casting long and thin shadows across the field of grass. This night however, all that say beyond the treeline was darkness, and that little bug.
Then as it was wistfully drifting through the air, it stopped. The light hanging in one spot suspended right by the area it would mysteriously vanish. I had been sitting there a while, only monitoring the passage of time via the lowering sun. Suddenly a pinprick of heat against the back of my hand snapped me from my hypnosis. The ash of my cigarette had fallen off and landed on my skin.
Quickly shaking my hand the ash was brushed off and the cool night’s air soothed the small burns. The light from the porch made the glossy crayon on the paper in my hand shine, almost like it was trying to nab my attention. Starring at the paper, the obscure form of me as a child sitting in front of the trees. The imaginary forest beyond them, and within that imaginary forest, a small yellow dot.
I could feel my face tense up at the sight of the hanging light beyond the trees that mirrored the one i had drawn as a child. Almost as if i had been lifted by strings i found myself standing up. The aching in my knees ringing out, i had them curled up like that for hours but still i stepped towards the trees. One step after another keeping my sights on the yellow dot beyond them that seemed to drist listfully in small circles, still tethered to the darkness beside it.
Soon enough, like i did as a child, i found myself standing before the line of trees peering off into the darkness. Up close the impossibility of the space i was observing only became more apparent. There shouldn’t have been such a thick and unyielding darkness beyond that line of trees. Nothing, not even beams of moonlight were able to penetrate the trees.
My heart was thudding, it was the only sense tethering me to the ground. I felt like i might float off should my heart fail to beat for just a moment. Curious, i started walking along the line of trees, all the while keeping my eye on the yellow prick of light. Each time one of the trees passed between me and it i would hope it might just vanish. My eyes would adjust or i’d come to my senses and see those pastures again. Each time a tree passed between me and it i would be gravely mistaken.
Somehow it felt like it was drawing closer despite not actually doing so. Finally reaching the end of trees, where they met the street, i took a breath and walked into the road. Standing on pavement completely free of the line of trees, i could see the pastures. Dark blades of grass being pushed by soft breezes. A vast midnight blue ocean. Further still, if i stepped on the other side of the trees to look through them, i could see my house sitting there waiting for me like nothing was out of sorts.
“Perhaps,” i thought, “Should i round these trees once more, things will be different.” And so i carried myself back to the other side of the trees. Like a predator in wait, the darkness sat still behind the line a trees. Unwavering and impossible. Like a sailor at the sea the darkness sang to me, calling for me. The small yellow light, a siren. Stepping closer, i felt like a child again. In awe of the vast unknown.
As i got mere inches away from crossing the threshold into what would be the darkness, i dropped to my knees. The paper i had been clutching fell to the grass next to me, folded and creased by the remnants of my grip. Small again, my eyes fixated on the yellow light as it started to stir in response to my present. Inhaling i could feel smoke pulling in from the cigarette between my lips. Soft amber pressing against my face.
The light by the tree drifted out and it was then joined by another, a second light hanging closely to the other. The pair of lights meandered for a moment before slowly making their way towards me. It was thanks to these lights that i could see the vague shapes of the forest resting beyond the tree line. The impossible set of trees that reached high into a sky i couldn’t possibly hope to make out.
I was motionless, only ever so often taking a drag of smoke to reignite like light between my lips. As the shape closed in my heart beat harder, clocking overtime to keep me on the ground, i could make out a shape. At first an uncertain silhouette. The closer it got the more the lights revealed it’s figure. They were small, maybe 3 feet, or closer to 4. There was a soft and flowing fabric around their waist the dropped to their ankles.
The lights, i quickly ascertained, were eyes. They almost seemed to hang loose in their sockets though, the way they continued to move sporadically in small circles. I watched them as they watched me, stepping timidly towards me. Like they had reason to fear me, despite the sense of dread the carried ever closer to me. I hadn’t noticed my fingers gripping the blades of grass by my knees until fingernails dug into my skin.
I was practically eating my cigarette at this point, inhaling more ash than smoke. Rapid breathing giving constantly life to the embers at the edge of white. There they were, a little girl standing at the boundary of the trees. The light behind me barely managing to illuminate her, she stood before me and dropped to her knees like i had. Her expression was stiff, not much emotion to display. Though her features were comprised not of flesh. At first i thought her skin was just rough.
Reminded me of the old faded leather in my mother’s living room. She had asked me to help her throw it away. Just never got around to it. The way the dark brown was cracked showing veins of white underneath. Her skin however, the little girl’s. She was made from the form of twisting branches and old auburn leafs. Those lights i had been seeing would drift within the confines of the swirling thin branches where eyes would rest.
Her whole body was like that. Arms and legs were long and gnarled branches that reached out and gripped the surrounding forest. Like it was all trying to mend back together into one cohesive form. Where her legs made contact with the ground i could see small twigs and blades of grass lifting up and covering her, trying to reclaim her. Despite my brain telling me to get up and move, i continued taking in her details.
The tattered dress that covered her seemed to be the only thing that wasn’t comprised of the woods around her. Violet with floral patterns adorning it, though the dress had been stained and ripped by her environment. There were vines drifting in and out of the holes of the dress like stitching. I could see the fabric ruffle as she lifted an arm from her side and held an open palm towards me.
From the surface of her palm, branches began stretching out. Or rather, vines grew from her surface and made their way to the barrier between us. I hadn’t considered the space between the two of us till then, that the line of trees were a gateway of sorts. Though it was the obvious assumption. It was a conclusion that i had perhaps been ignoring, as it did surface though i felt a great need to retreat.
My legs began to move but as soon as my knees lifted from the ground there was a resistance. My head dropped to observe this and i saw a stitching of vines and branches that had grown over my legs pinning me to the ground. Reaching down i tried to pry them loose, they looked thin enough that i could snap them right off. But as my fingers got close i could see that they began to grow upward, reacting to my hand.
Fingers trembled as i pulled them back. I feared gripping the growing plants could cause them to latch onto my hand as well. Though looking down i could see the branches that had gathered around my legs led back to the forest, to the girls own legs, linking us. I quickly remembered the growth from her palms and brough my gaze up again. They were so close already, they must have moved faster when i wasn’t looking.
With the pounding in my chest and my brain having long since begged me to run i could only watch as the vines got closer. Small adjustments were made to give myself as much time as i could before the plants reached me. Leaning back created some space, I wasn’t much for flexibility and I could feel the muscles in my legs starting to ache. It wasn’t long before the vines reached me. With my spine bent as far as the aching would allow, like a firm handshake I met the foliage.
At first they only wrapped around me, my eyes fixated ahead. I felt the plants move like brittle worms against my skin. Small scrapes and nudges were incapable of breaking my gaze away from the girl. The more I watched, the more I was covered in the same skin she wore, the more I knew her. They were closer than I felt. As they gained more ground I could feel them pushing down, thorns prodding into my skin.
I tried to move but the more I struggled against the tide the more aggressive the plants seemed to be. I just kept watching her, helpless. Looking into those soft yellow orbs drifting around. I thought to myself that they almost looked like-
A piece of hot ash hit my chin, how long had the cigarette been burning. I thought of myself standing off from the trees, pulling in breath to ignite the stick. Then I remember sitting in front of the trees as a child. That distant light I saw in an endless forest, one singular speck of amber, I think back then I thought it was a firefly. I didn’t really know back then. What a cigarette was.
The plants wrapped and tightened against my skin, I could feel my flesh pulling as a searing wrapped me. Against the plants I lifted my arm towards the girl and fought as much as I could, leaning forward. The pain is only growing. Regrets work like that, the more you fight them, the tighter they feel. The more they fight back. They plants reached my neck as my fingers hovered inches from hers.
That little girl had no idea what life laid ahead of her. All she had was the friend she saw beyond the treeline. All she had was me. All I had was her. With the fractures in my skin I finally made contact with her. Fingers resting on her’s, she returned my gaze. I suppose I wasn’t always there for myself. Afraid to let myself just be me. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t around for mom as much as I wanted to be. I saw so much of myself in my mom as I got older. I hated it… back then.
Fingers curling like the vines did around me. I held her hand. She looked down for a moment, those lights observing our connection. “It’s okay.” I said, surprised to hear my own voice as the sticky end of my cigarette was freed from my lips. “I’m here.” I continued as her eyes raised back to mine. We locked eyes for a moment. Gazed into the light we could offer one another. And the vines loosened.
“Honey?” A voice, frail and shaky chimed out behind me. I always thought after my mom passed, if i was there a bit more i could’ve taken care of her. Helped her more. “What are you doing out here?” She continued. My arm was outstretched, the piece of paper now rested between my fingers again. Looking at it I saw a familiar drawing.
Under the porch’s light, the glossy crayon shone. The image of me as a little girl sitting down in front of the line of trees. A small red light hanging in an infinite forest. And the figure reached out to hold my small hands. My pain subsided. Thin aging fingers rested on my shoulder. I replied.
“Just talking to a friend.”