Other Things Worthy of Your Time
Forest Place
2/7/03
It was green, and must have been somewhere in the east. I don’t remember where. It had to be somewhere there, because while maybe you can find green like that here, maybe you can’t. Everything here seems to have a brown death to it. This was really green, a pure green; nothing dead or dying.
It was unmarked and untouched. There were no paths laid or tracks beaten. Maybe no one had ever set foot back there, so I stopped where I was, and left it that way.
I was the only one to ever see it. Even though there were people behind me, they didn’t follow, and in front of me, I was alone for miles.
I sat upon a rock, halfway imbedded in the ground, but still taller than I was. I wanted this place for myself, someplace I could come, alone, and where no one else could be or even see. I didn’t talk to myself, and wouldn’t ever have to here. This would be a place where I would be silent and think.
The trees were so tall and the canopy so thick that hardly any light from the sun came in. Only sharp beams, where it did sneak by, reflected off the dust, or the fog, or maybe just the air itself. Still the place glowed with color: that same green from the leaves, and a dark brown from the trunks; not a dead brown, but a color bright with life. It was as if something far back, deep in the trees created its own light for this place. But no one had ever been back there to know what it was, of course.
Because of the light, it was never night there. Realistically there was, cause really there couldn’t be any light like that, but I had never been back there then, and, so, nobody had ever been there had they? So if no one had ever seen it like that, maybe it really didn’t have to be.
I left, of course, and when I turned round to walk away, I didn’t look back. Maybe it disappeared then and the people who were calling only saw me, walking away from nothing. It would be there again though, when I came back. I had to come back. I had to find it again because, if I didn’t, no one would.
NOTES
This was for an English assignment. You were to write a vignette. The teacher joked about salad.