Brandon Figliolino
October 12, 2010
Fork
Just
outside your neighborhood is a wooded trail, one that curls and coils among evergreens, aspens, and firs. It’s no place for a child like yourself to wander
without each of your hands clasped between those of your mother and father. You
explore it regardless.
Walking down the
street, you carry with you your ratty pink blanket. You clutch it close to your
face; it doesn’t scream or yell. The smell it exudes reminds you of memories
past, makes you quiver.
It’s
autumn. The leaves have turned to vibrant hues of gold, and most have fallen to
rot on the trail and underbrush. The blanket drags against the path; a magnet
for dirt and bugs. There are so many trees, some as tall as the mountains, it
seems. One tree you come across a good distance away, in particular, is actually
quite small. It’s just a tiny sapling, and is probably no taller than you. It
has few stems and no leaves. You wonder what it would look like if it had
leaves.
But it’s dead. It
has ceased to grow and instead, now decomposes until nothing will remain. It
will become nutrients for worms, soil. Maybe its grave will be the place for a
new tree to sprout, if any seeds survive the bitter frost Mother Nature will exert
over the landscape.
You
continue walking into the afternoon, feeling the twigs snap and leaves crunch
under your footsteps. You arrive at a conundrum: a place where to dirt paths
diverge. Neither path appears to be the better choice. One descends deeper into
the underbrush and out of sight while the other trail’s ascension into the
hills is steep and covered with fallen trees.
The air becomes
stagnant, and your heart palpitates uncontrolled. The blanket is wrapped around
your fragile body, tight like an embrace. Turning back is not an option, though
you wish it were. You stand there motionless until the sun disappears and the moon
takes her place in the sky.
Two voices call
out your name, but the sound of them makes you cry. You ignore them and attempt
to move, first taking a step towards the path to the left. Second-guessing
yourself, you step back and move towards the right. When you realize you’ve
been standing in the same spot for several minutes, you curl up on the ground
with your blanket and stare into the darkness. The voices become faint and you
realize life will never be the same.
