💾 Archived View for lantashifiles.com › writing › shadows › amongTheForest.gmi captured on 2023-04-26 at 13:12:42. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2022-04-28)
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Lee walked along the path, enjoying the quiet of the forest. He listened to the wind, the call of the birds, the scurrying of small animals away from him. He had set out a couple hours before, moving from one trail to another to another, from human and animal to human trail again. He was feeling tired, but he enjoyed the sensation. Lee was in good shape, and he had nowhere to be today, and knew that he could find his way back easy enough.
The walk in the forest used to be a weekly occurence, or even more often, when he was a teenager. It was a way for him to clear his head, to get the noise of civilization behind him. Occasionally he would run across other people here, but that was more common in the spring and summer. As the season turned to late fall, and a chill gripped the air, only the more adventurous set out. Or the hunter, but it was still too early for that. He enjoyed the company of the pine, the fir, the ash. They spoke a different type of truth that the person. The forest was quieter, but it was true. You learned things from it that would not be set into words, but could only be felt inside.
Afternoon gave way to evening. The man shifted his direction, picking trails that would take him back to his truck, and then to home. He slipped off of the common trails to less traveled ones, ones that he was familiar with. As he pushed through ferns he felt thorns pulling at his jeans and shirt. The rays of the sun ceased to break through the thick trees, and the woods around him turned to shadows. The sounds around him began to change. Lee moved quietly, only making a small rustle as he moved. Ahead of him he saw a family of deer walk along the ridge of the hill. As they turned to look at him, a glint of sun shined in their eyes before they moved on.
He felt it in his soul before he heard it with his ears. The land around him changed. Not the deepening shadows of evening, or the awakening of the nocturnal creatures around him. It was... something else.
Lee was traveling south to reach his truck. But he started being pulled rather to the west, off the path. He hesitated. He had stayed too long, and a comfortable shower and bed was his desire. Yet, why not? He was sure it was nothing, some inborn desire for adventure, the unknown, and that was in short supply in the technological society.
Lee left the path, pushing through ferns and brambles. He proceeded uphill, and with the underbrush he could not hear much other than himself moving. After a few minutes he reached the top of the hill.
The wind carried to him a beautiful voice, feminine, and mysterious. It was song, but of a style very old, and in a language unknown to the man. He stood for a few minutes listening. Though he knew not the words, they carried meaning.
Then they stopped. Lee, on pursuit of this song for fifteen minutes, before he had even recognized what it was he followed, felt a loss. He walked several steps, but without the sound on the air, he lost his bearings, suddenly unsure. He looked around, trying to get his bearings after havig left the trail to follow the voice. He felt that it had been calling to him specifically. He was in a depression, the land rising up around him. Where he stood was damp, with much moss growing at the foot of the trees.
Lee was tempted to call out, to call for the voice to come back, but he did not. He felt that calling out would somehow be a violation of the song, though why he couldn't understand himself.
Now, Lee had no idea where he was. He brought out a Garmin from his pocket, one that he carried just in case he ever lost his way. He brought up the waypoint he left for his truck, noting that it was farther away from him than when he had started his journey back. It also adjusted to "night mode", as the sky was now growing quite dark.