Behind, But Not For Long - 29,513

I wrote last night for the first time since Friday. I got in my 1667 words, but it was pretty boring and now I'm pretty far behind. But I had to set up for something much more interesting which I will be writing about today. Hopefully I will catch up quickly on both my writing and on all of your blogs!

Sorry for not blogging for so long! Between the Clarke wedding, the wedding shower, and not sleeping anymore, I have just been so tired. I thought I would get a good night's sleep last night, but Lucy wanted to share my pillow with me from the moment I went to bed until 4:30, when she determined that it was time to wake up! but she's being super cute today to make up for it.

I'll post a little excerpt today from what I wrote last night. It is from the beginning of the summer of 1986, before Mark meets any of his other friends. He is playing explorers by himself and wanders a bit too far into the forest. This will become very very important for what I am about to write next! Sorry, but it's a little bit long to make up for mu lack of posting of late.

It had been sunny out when Mark had gone into the woods. Sunny, but not too hot. Not hot like it would become later in the summer. But now, the trees were so thick, it was impossible to tell exactly what the weather was like in what Mark had come to think of over the past two hours as ‘the outside world.’ It was dark under the canopy, and over the past ten or twenty minutes, Mark had noticed that there was a thickening mist at ground level. Initially, it had been barely noticeable, but now Mark could barely see his shoes. He was not panicked, no, not even close. When Mark was alone, he had a confidence about him, a sense of power. He could control his emotions much better than he could when there were other children around.

                Mark looked around, taking slow careful steps, making sure he would not trip and fall over unseen obstacles hiding in the mist. He continued to try to get his bearings, looking for a marker, any marker that would be recognizable and help him orient himself. But it was impossible. Mark feared that he was deeper in the woods than he had ever been.

                “Why didn’t you think to bring a compass, dummy!” Mark scolded himself.

                He walked deeper and deeper into the woods, not knowing which direction would take him home. With each step, it seemed, the trees grew denser, thicker, more alive. Their leaves were greener, and there were more of them. And the leaves seemed to start lower to the ground, as if the high ceiling of the forest were collapsing on him, the walls moving in closer and closer. Although Mark was not claustrophobic, he started to feel closed in by the trees. And there was another feeling, too. There was something evil lurking in this forest. Something with bad intentions. The trees, having been exposed to this evil for countless years, were starting to become evil themselves. They grew long branches close to the ground, and lifted their roots above the soil to trip the unfortunate person who wandered into their domain. And yes, this was their domain. And they sensed a stranger, and interloper amongst them.

                As the wind whistled through the leaves, moving the branches, Mark thought he heard the trees groaning their negative thoughts about his presence. Or were they telling someone or something that he was here? Mark was suddenly unsure. The growing darkness, and the billowing mist were becoming too much for Explorer Mark to handle. He just wanted to get out of here, to go home and eat his lunch.

                Up ahead, Mark saw something in the afternoon darkness. Mark silently wondered whether it was ever light here, but he dared not wonder aloud. In many places, we have been raised to know without thinking that we are supposed to be quiet when we are there. For example, the library. Everybody whispers in the library. But there are places where the silence seems to assert itself, seems to threaten to punish you if you break it. No one needs to teach you to be quiet here, the silence tells you for itself. And this part of the forest was one of those places.

  Mark tried to turn around, and go back the way he came, but when he looked back he saw that there was no way to get through shrubbery and trees that thick. It was strange, because he had just walked from there, but he had not remembered walking through anything that dense. To the left of where Mark now stood, there seemed to be a path of some kind. Even though Mark had no idea why there might be a path this deep in the forest, he decided to follow it. At least the path would lead somewhere, and currently Mark was going no where.

Once Mark was on the path, he started to feel a little bit better. Started to feel like he was heading in the right direction, and that he was going home. Soon this whole adventure would be a memory he could look back on and learn from. After only a couple of minutes of walking on the path, bizarre things started to happen. The first being the appearance of green balls of light floating off in the distance ahead of Mark. He could barely see the lights because the trees and shrubbery were so thick, but they were there nonetheless. Next, the mist on the ground started to thicken again, and spread further up Mark’s legs. Initially, the mist had only been covering Mark’s shoes. Now, Mark could not see his leg below the knee. With each passing minute, Mark was feeling worse and worse about choose to walk on this path, or at least choosing the direction that he had chosen. While this path might be leading to something, it was perhaps something that Mark did not want to be led to.

Suddenly, Mark ran into a wall of fallen tree branches. He cut his face, just below his left eye and cried out in pain. The trees moaned and groaned their complaint at his disturbance of the silence. Mark thought briefly about scaling this make shift wall of fallen wood, but decided that it was high time he got out of here. With no regard for his own safety, Mark ran as fast as he could for as long as he could. He ran until his side hurt so much he thought that something must be broken. He ran until breath was screaming out of him in harsh, ragged gasps. He ran until the muscles in his legs felt like jelly. In short, Mark ran to the point of exhaustion. He stood there, hands on his knees, bent over, trying to catch his breath. When he looked up, he realized that he recognized where he was. It was a small clearing, still deep in the forest, but somewhere Mark had been before. This was the place where Isaac would die just a few short weeks from this day.

Once Mark had caught his breath, he walked out of the woods. He went home, and at three bologna sandwiches, and at least half a bag of chips. By the time he had finished eating, the memory of getting lost in the forest already felt distant, hazy, as if it had been a dream.

Until next time, faithful readers.