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Through the Woods (long of course) (737 hits)

Category: Quotes & Stories

Rating: 1.71 on 17 reviews (Rate this item) (V)

Submitted by katy (View user info) at 2006-06-28 14:09:35 EDT

Ever get asked life-altering questions? Maybe just one life-altering question? Usually they only make you think for the second it takes you to contemplate the answer. After that's passed you fish for the answer that was really being looked for so you can get the "right" one out. You know, the kind of questions that really blindside you. Sometimes, if you look close enough, even the most guarded person has just given away the fact that you just destroyed their existence. Of course, it's only really for a second and then everyone goes on like the question never got asked. Things not to know I guess.

I think the most disturbing question is "What are you doing?" I mean really it's a very simple question. But really if you ask again after someone's explained themselves they see that you were really asking, "Why? Why are you doing that?"

Most people are content with not knowing what or why. No one really knows exactly why they're doing something, or so they'd like to think. Every one can see inside far enough to the places that whisper the answers in a raspy voice that's better left to telling fairy tales to small children. Maybe that voice is part of why people do things.

I think that voice is part of the reason I did what I did and still do what I do. I know it's just me talking to me, but still, it let's me know why I do things. It's just my conscience anyway.

By 12th hour of the drive into Montana it'd finally hit me just exactly where I was and what I was doing. The empty car seat in the back of the car sat there for the better part of a day now. Every once in a while I'd look at it in the rear-view mirror. It was blue with little red flowers on it, really ugly actually. There was a stain on it from when she spit up a couple weeks ago. It smelled like sour milk and baby oil.

Empty. It's funny how things match up when you finally get to noticing everything. The road is empty, the grass next to the road was empty, the sky is empty, the carseat's empty. I hum to myself to keep my mind empty.

Every few hours or so I'd find one on the same side of the road. Only the Lord knows what the names are of those places. One cup of coffee, one short stack or maybe a Reuben. Those memories are lost in emptiness too. But then again who really remembers what they eat. All the diners had the same three waitresses I'm sure of it, they would just decide who would serve me next while I was driving to the next same diner. I think they're the three fates. Just along for my ride.

The first one was the young one. She's always named something with the word star in it, like her Ma thought naming her Starla would someday get her out of their little hell. She stares at every lone male as if he might be her ticket out of that yellow or blue or pink or beige uniform. You know which one I mean, the one with the attached ruffly apron that's impossible to really bleach the coffee stains out of. Anyway, being a lone woman, I don't offer much of a chance for her. This one deals with me the least. The youngest fate was the one spinning right? I think so.

The next waitress, I guess she's the middle one. She's middle aged, middle height, middle weight. Everything's average about her, she even has a forgettable name. Something common like Lisa or Jenny. She blends in. The only thing you can really notice is the slightly darker roots with streaks of gray beneath the fading hair dye. Well that and the bad make up. She's what happens when Starla doesn't get out of town. I think the younger one regards her with fear. She doesn't want to be this tired woman. The "mother" I guess. The one that measures the thread.

The last waitress, the one that sees me the most is the old one. She's ageless only in the fact you can't tell if she's about to turn 100 or if she just looks like it. She has a permanent, acrid smell of stale Marlboros. White hair and wrinkled skin aged by the sun and smoke. Her voice is like gravel going through a mechanized cheese grater. She always looks at you with a sort of disdain. As if she really had anything better to do in this town than pour your coffee anyway. You hate this one, you kind of fear her too. She represents everything you never want to happen to you. Empty life, empty town, empty soul, and scarier, empty eyes. She's the one with the blade tensed above your lifethread. Sometimes when it's dark enough, I swear she has a kitchen knife tucked in that apron pocket with the coffee stain on it.

Montana has these places all over. Oregon and Idaho too. I started out in Washington. I was taking my baby daughter for a ride, down 101, up through Olympia, over the Tacoma Narrows into Seattle. Normally I would've just hopped the ferry back around and continued back over the Hood Canal and up home. Instead I decided to just head west. I think it was route 512 that I started at but I'm not sure any more. I'm not sure what day it is either.

She loved the drives. It was nice watching her in the back seat ogling at all the passing tree tops. I'm assuming she couldn't really see much else from where she was. The first night we stopped under the stars and I just held her and explained everything I could. We even saw a shooting star. We'd only really made it a little past Yakima by then.

The next night was the bad one though. We'd hit the hard part of the mountains. It wasn't winter or anything, but driving through the woods was still dark and dangerous. I guess in fairy tales the woods are always dark and dangerous so it made sense. I got lost, not horribly lost, but lost enough to have to stop on the side and take a nap for the night. I crawled in the back seat and snuggled my daughter.

The windows were about halfway down. It was late enough in the spring to not have bugs or freezing cold so it didn't seem like a bad idea. If it rained I'd wake up. It was clear with a full moon, a nice night to be out really, a blanket around the baby and me.

I had a dream that night that these two arms reached through the window and took my baby. I couldn't wake up and I couldn't stop them. The trees drove themselves into my car. Scratching bark and too many twig fingers tore her from the seat screaming. Leaves and vines and branches wrapped themselves around me raking my skin open and leaving their sap to sting the cuts. Her cries faded into the distance echoing off the rocks and evergreens. I heard a new child's laughter and then leaves covered my eyes. Monsters in the trees.

I woke up and still feeling the dream I looked around, out the window first and then I rolled them up. I couldn't do it fast enough. You know how when you get so scared you can't ever do anything fast enough, close a window, run, pull the covers over your head, get to that lightswitch. Your heart slams against your ribcage as if it thought it could break out and be able to do it faster so you could save yourself.

I checked on my daughter. Still asleep. "Good," I thought. I got back on the road. Another one of those things that I just couldn't do fast enough.

She woke up around dawn. I heard the shift in her breathing, the deep sigh that gets released when sleep is no longer an option. I looked in the rearview to catch a glimpse. She was yawning, looking out the window. Turning her face towards me she stared intently at me in the mirror. I thought I was wrong at first. I mean babies don't give these looks, it's a glare or a distortion or something's wrong with the glass.

Hard eyes drilled into me from the backseat. I tried to ignore it. Eventually it just got to me. I pulled over a couple hours later. The look searing itself into my brain was too much and I couldn't take it any more. I thought a walk would be nice. There was a road, with half a fence near by. It didn't look like it lead anywhere but that was ok. Just a walk, a quick stretch.

I took the baby with me. She felt a lot heavier in my arms. Like all of a sudden that tiny body was housing a whole new creature squirming beneath her skin. My arms started to shake with her weight but I couldn't put her down, she couldn't walk yet, so I walked for her, up through the break in the fence and over the hills, up and down. Could've been miles I'm not sure, I know it seemed like hours. Brown dust was settling into the stitching of my shoes. I was staring at my feet so I wouldn't look at her. Silently we crested the hill together and came upon a small pond with a couple trees around it.

I walked up to the pond and sat on a rock. Shifting the baby from my arms to my lap I finally looked at her. I might've stared at her for hours too just like I might've walked for miles. I'm not sure. When I pulled my gaze away the sun was low in the sky. Everything was in those eyes. There was an age and cruelty to them that you could only read about in stories. Things like this weren't real. Only in fairy tales right? Right...

I heard my conscience say what I already knew and that I didn't have a choice any more. I took her by the throat and held her in the pond water. She died gurgling and kicking in the muck and mud of some back country pond in Idaho. I couldn't find that place again if I tried. I'm not even sure it really exists. Maybe that carseat doesn't exist either.

I ran back to the car, never fast enough. When I'd locked myself in my fiberglass and metal fortress I felt safe. I felt light. I looked at the carseat and there was a leaf in the seat. I headed east, away from the sun and the pond and out of the woods.

I'm not sure, not at all. Eventually one of those waitresses, one of the Fates, will ask me what I'm doing. Then when I fish for the answer I guess I'll know what I've done. You'd understand if you were me. I got through the woods, carrying the wolf with me at my breast. At some point the scissors have to come out to snip the thread though.

MonsterAtStaircase.jpg (145 kB)

User Reviews

Submitted by Maltese (user info) at 2006-09-05 13:44:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

No Comment

Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-06-29 19:19:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

freaky

Submitted by Webered (user info) at 2006-06-29 09:32:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2

Well kaos-king, I'm flattered you think so highly of my opinion. As for the rest of you, I rate posts how everyone should; completely dependent on the quality of the post. This post, for example was pretty fucking terrible.

However, some of you like to directly correlate your rating with those of the person you are rating. (Did that make sense? I'm pretty hung over.) Uhh, in other words, I think I would have rather given myself an enema with a tube covered in broken glass and hot sauce than retard myself with this shit.

Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-06-28 19:31:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

Webered is of the "New School" with LivEvil and Retro who feel nothing is up to their standards.

I literally fall out of my seat when I receive a positive score from one of them.

Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2006-06-28 17:42:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

Ah you do these back and forth posts. Sometimes you post stuff that I'm like "Uh...this is crap." and then other times I think "YAY! Child killing!"

More child killing, more +2's. Do we understand each other?

Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-06-28 16:45:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0

haha apparently somewhere down the line i pissed off webered.

Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2006-06-28 16:39:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

No Comment

Submitted by Coleslaw_Murphy (user info) at 2006-06-28 16:13:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

Help yourself to a +2. Go on, get one. Good girl.

Submitted by Webered (user info) at 2006-06-28 15:51:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2

Wow, so I read it now. You killed your kid. Greeeaat. Oh? You brought the three Fates into it? Amazing. Please, write something else full of vivid content. I'm dying here.

Submitted by Webered (user info) at 2006-06-28 15:36:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2

After stumbling through the first couple paragraphs, I couldn't help but ask my self, "Why? Why am I reading this filth?"

Submitted by richsghostdog (user info) at 2006-06-28 15:16:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

Excellent!

Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2006-06-28 14:59:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

Good read.

Submitted by fatgirl (user info) at 2006-06-28 14:28:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

Ooo I liked! I liked!

You were great with your wording and descriptors..one thing I would suggest is to add a bit more to the change in the child...you are so thorough with everything else that I found that aspect needing a bit more- a bit more fleshed out and then leave the ending as it is. Good job :)

Submitted by SilvrWolf (user info) at 2006-06-28 14:26:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

"carrying the wolf with me at my breast"""

Yeah, sorry about the teeth. I get a little overexcited sometimes.

Submitted by CrazyCanuck (user info) at 2006-06-28 14:23:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

Why is everyone killing kids around here lately?

Submitted by moneyshotforyou (user info) at 2006-06-28 14:17:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2

We should have sex.