Human - phan

Twenty Nine

The trees were shorter than I remembered them and the forest sparser, light filtering easily down through the canopy to dapple the moss on the ground with yellow and green. Birds sang where before there were gunshots. The wind through the leaves sounded like quiet sighing rather than the screaming that filled my mind and the branches swayed peacefully. Things had changed.

As insects buzzed lazily through the bracken something small rustled by my feet. The boy at my side smiled. He was whistling like a bird, his blue eyes sparkling under the sunshine. I watched him in awe for a moment as he twisted and moulded his lips ever so slightly to imitate the song of a blackbird and the sweet trill of finches. As he whistled a songbird called back, and he smiled again.

I love the smell of the forest. It was an autumn smell, wet and muddy but fresh and lush and green. Like damp leaves. Like animals and birds. Like the musk of the bracken and the wet earth underfoot. Every now and then I caught the scent of an autumn flower still blooming, so sweet I could almost taste it.

Phil and I weren't talking, but we didn't need to. We just enjoyed each other's company as someone to walk beside in perfect time. Our feet sunk ever so slightly into the moss and leaves each time we stepped. It was soft and springy, with the occasional crunch of a twig. I let my fingers trail across the tops of the brackens – but warily, keeping a watch for nettles or thorns.

A tangle of vines and ivy fell across the path and we ducked through, the leaves catching my hair and brushing my face.

I love the feel of the forest. The leaves which can be soft or waxy or sharp or delicate. Luscious or decaying. Green or red or orange or brown. The forest floor under my trainers. The crisp air on my face. The soft down of feathers or fur caught on a stray branch and fluttering in the wind. The feeling it creates inside of you. The forest is alive, all round me things are moving - things are growing and living and so am I; part of the forest, if only for a while. I remember taking walks like this with my parents many years ago. I stopped wanting to go, throwing a tantrum whenever they tried to make me leave my play station. But when I was there I always shut up. My dad would look for deer with me and help me find climbing trees while my mum pointed out all the flowers and the toadstools and picked out all the different birds from their song. It was only then, as I walked with Phil, that I realised how much I missed those walks. The walks I had grown out of through laziness but had seemingly grown back into. I made a resolution to take my parents into the woods when they came up at the end of the year for all the formalities. Maybe we'd find some deer, and maybe not.

*

Phil led the way. We picked a winding and leisurely path through the trees, not paying much attention, but I knew Phil would find the way home. Behind my head a bird screamed and launched itself into the sky with a beating of heavy wings.

"I think that was a woodpecker." Phil murmured.

I nodded as I watched it go, colourful plumage flashing through the trees.

"We're getting nearer the river. Do you remember? The first time I took you in here? We've been walking a long time."

"Really? How long?" I frowned, looking at my watch. "I didn't even realise. Time doesn't seem to pass in here. At least, not in the same way."

"I don't actually know, really." Phil confessed.

I watched a rabbit nibbling on the grass that sprouted up in the middle of the path ahead of us. It watched back, warily, as it chewed.

"I remember. Of course I do. I didn't realise we were all the way over there though."

As we took another step forwards the rabbit finally gave up, bounding into the undergrowth with the flash of its bobbing white tail.