The
trees stood proudly about Roger Frost like soldiers presenting for inspection.
If not for the light shooting through the little holes in the canopy, the glow
of green emanating from the leaves would have made the time of day obvious. The
scenery was tinted like light shined through an emerald. He deftly maneuvered
between the platoons without taking notice of their stances. It was nearly noon
and Roger had already traversed ten brisk miles that day. He felt happy hiking
with his home on his back.
Being in the wilderness pleased Roger. It tapped into the wellspring of
contentment he had in being a simple man. Simplicity for Roger meant detachment
from the frivolous trappings of life. He had become accustomed to owning little
and learned to like it. When at home by himself, he often imagined what life
would be like should a sudden catastrophe force humanity to live without the
aid of technology. He fancied himself a survivor, someone who could adapt
quickly and preserve himself even in dire situations. While everyone else would
be running around crying and pulling their hair out, Roger would be rubbing
sticks together with a smirk on his face. He would offer a neighbor a piece of
cooked game and go on to be the one to organize a communal farm. He would
humbly put human affairs back on their proper track.
Though it was early spring, the ground beneath Roger's feet had the familiar
mush of ever-decomposing leaves. After absorbing a brief morning sprinkle, the
trail was slick. Roger used his worn walking stick to maintain equilibrium when
the wet earth tried to induce him to do otherwise. All was silent except for
swishing of his persistent pace and the huffs of his rhythmic breathing.
Occasionally, he heard the crackle of a squirrel bounding through vines and
saplings. The only sensation that interrupted his thoughts was the sporadic tug
of stray spiderwebs disturbed by his neck and face. A pinprick of guilt dripped
within him for ruining the labor the tiny spinsters.
Nature had not always been his element. As a child, Roger was a homebody. He
spent much of his adolescence under the watchful eye of his mother. Such an accomplished hypochondriac was she that she channeled her overflowing sickness onto
her only child. He was kept in his room for fear of contracting a malady from
his suspicious peers or harming himself in their thorny surroundings. From his
bedroom window, Roger loved nature as a courtier loved his fair maiden.
Trailing behind him strands of silken nets, his gaze was fixed on the ground shortly
in front of his feet. He was preoccupied by the hazards along the trail.
Although less nimble than he was in his youth, Roger knew well the ways of
stable movements. Without remaining alert and compensating for the scattered
rocks and roots, he would crash to the ground. The added weight of his supplies
ensured he would be torn open by a fall. He appreciated how in nature nothing
laughed when a person tripped. The sound in the forest before and after a
tumble was the same. The natural world took no notice.
Despite all of its briers and burs, the natural world seemed preferable to
the constructed one. The constructed one always seemed to fall short of its
aspirations, while the natural one never boasted and, thus, never
failed. Roger's childhood home was depressing for all of its disrepair. The
shabbiness was a drain on its inhabitants. The doors always squeaked. The paint
peeled. Drafts were common in the winter and leaks in the spring. One could not
help but feel dilapidated by association to the ragged lodging. From inside the
Frost house, the outdoors seemed glorious. He spent his youth daydreaming.
Roger frequently pictured himself exploring the woods from behind his sweating
bedroom window.
On a safe swath of the trail, Roger took notice of the natural world. There was a subtle, acrid smell in the
air that always accompanied rain in the woods. Decomposition was being
encouraged by the same water that was also nourishing roots. In the middle of
observing how the odor reminded him of ones he had smelt in public restrooms,
Roger noticed he did not feel well. Nausea had creepily begun to stir in his
belly. Thinking he may be on his way to dehydration, he paused on a mossy stump
to slake his thirst. He drank the tepid water in gulps and panted after holding
his breath. He rifled into his pack for the bag of nuts he had brought. The
salty crunch was disagreeable to his taste. He frowned and swallowed them down
in haste. Roger ran his tongue around the interior of his mouth to clear away
the remnants of almonds. He looked off into the distance and became enamored by
the sight of doe. She was serenely grazing on sprouts—dropping her head down,
lifting it to listen, and dropping it again. Roger lost himself in the vision
of the animal. He was brought back to his affliction by the abrupt flicker of
its tail.
Roger did not realize the exceptional decay of his surroundings until he went
off to school. In kindergarten, he was made aware of his relative impoverishment. He was
ridiculed for his tattered clothes and belittled about his disreputable abode.
Apparently, his family had developed a reputation in his all-too-small town.
His plump, glowing teacher did what she could to mitigate the influence of his
peers. She injected him with platitudes about the importance of invisible
values—that it was what was on the inside that counted. Roger numbly wondered
to whom it counted. He was immune to her kind encouragement and took heart from
the plants outside his home instead. At times the trees and shrubs are bare,
but they always revive. They grow and become worthier than their beginnings. For all of the
tenacious heckling he received, Roger refused to feel guilty for something that
was to him as natural as autumn.
Shaken to attention, he returned to his mission. With one last gulp swallowed, Roger
grunted his way back to a walking stance. Feeling for the netted pocket and
finding it, he slid the bottle into its place. His throbbing feet pushed
against the interior of his tattered boots. The seams of faded thread began
giving way years ago. For all the abuse they endured, they never completely gave way.
After succumbing to wrinkles and puckers on every step, they always sprang back
to shape with every stride. He hiked onward with a tighter calloused grip on
his walking stick.
Inspired by nature, Roger embraced his condition. Instead of lamenting the
relative poverty of his family, he took it as a season. He was going to prove
to himself—not his classmates—that he could overcome his privations and
thrive in an extended summer of vitality. Overcoming to Roger did not mean
scrambling to fill the bare spots but embellishing further the areas in the
self that were already adorned. If he was not wealthy, so be it. He was full of
life. He had the power to alter his surroundings. As soon as his mother was
distracted, he expended all of his energy as often as he could in spasms of
revolt. He was fueled by spite towards the injustice of his situation. He lived
to destroy barriers. He laughed at worldly trials and sought out difficulty. He
thumbed his nose at suffering. So thoroughly had he treasured pain that he
started to feel himself invincible.
His steps became less rapid than they were earlier in the day. He had
difficulty blocking out the sensations bubbling in his abdomen. Roger's pain
began to localize in the right side of his lower back. He tried to reassure
himself that he was experiencing the usual cramping that occurred in the midst
of backpacking. He pushed on and concentrated on his path. In most areas, it
was only distinguishable by a thin ribbon of muddier soil. The leaves down the
center of the trail were more trodden and, thus, less distinguishable than those
on the periphery. The difference between being lost and on track was a
preponderance of darker brown underfoot. He appreciated how
singularly disinterested in humanity nature was. She offered no sign posts on
her own. She showed no partiality; she did not play favorites. Trails had to be
blazed or else one would wander aimlessly.
Roger aged from being an audacious teenager to a meek man in the span of a
weekend. Roger's mother became more lethargic as wrinkles sunk more heavily
upon her face. As a consequence, her son was afforded greater liberty. He would
escape his home whenever her guard was down. Roger set goals for his adventures
of increasing extremity. First, he wanted to spend a night alone outdoors.
Next, he wanted to hike to a river twenty miles away. He was intoxicated by his
freedom. Roger was enraptured by action. He would push over rotting tree trunks
and kick mushrooms. Chipmunks scurried at the sound of his cathartic grunts. He could be a mountain man, an explorer. The apex of his expeditions was a fifty mile trek with nothing but a knife,
compass, map, blanket, and two pounds of deer jerky. He was seeking to find his
limit. Roger wanted to be independent; he wanted to be sufficient unto himself.
He wanted to be separate from the weights the hung on him—the truths about
himself that were out of his control. In
preparation, Roger studied books on local vegetation and manuals on hunting. At
the end of his greatest mission was a feat of immense daring. Old locals liked
to tell stories in the town bar of a thirty-five foot cliff above a nearby lake that had since been cordoned off due to frequent injuries. Having a notion
of the coordinates of the site, Roger struck out to conquer his part of the
world early one Saturday morning.
The canopy shielded Roger from the afternoon sun. Nevertheless, he began
sweating profusely. Steps were more laborious. He appeared like a wounded
animal. His stride was hindered by limp to favor his right side. He
paused to close his eyes and heard the rustle of a breeze. Mercifully cool wind
tickled his neck. He let his head drop until his chin touched his sternum. He
gulped air like water trying to calm himself. When the bouquet of decomposition
reentered his nose, a geyser of vomit erupted upwards. The violence of his
reaction surprised him. He hunched over, dripping. He spat to cleanse his pallet and rubbed his right side with his hand. Concern began to leak into him mind. Finding a nearby stump, Roger
sat again. He fumbled for his water bottle. He noticed the disagreeable taste
of the iodized water more acutely than before. He suppressed the desire to
purge once more. He had no appetite and his energy levels were diminished. He
focused on the glossy black ants milling between his boots. Some toted white
granules of an unknown substance in their mandibles. They seemed directionless,
walking and turning at random times. Where were their trails? Closing his eyes
helped him suppress his mounting misery. He put all of his attention into his
ears and listened to the leaves flicker. Roger lost track of time. Although it
was barely dusk, Roger desperately wanted to sleep. He beckoned to
unconsciousness as his saving grace. He held out hope that the next day would
bring with it renewed health. He thought of how he had
forgotten old lessons and began to repent.
It took him fourteen hours of weaving between tree limbs and plodding through
undergrowth to get to the makeshift fence that blocked the cliff. Roger slung
his pack off his shoulder and let it tip over. He stamped down the chicken wire
with his boot and approached the edge. Roger peered over it. His head spun with
the sight of the chasm. The slope of the rock face was carved by skillful use
of dynamite prior to the quarry being flooded. He retreated and scanned the
periphery. The sky was billowing with clouds like smoke against the cobalt blue
of dusk. The landscape looked surreal: dense forest butted up against a barren
crater. A path that had been cleared for the transportation of minerals was in
nature's reclamation process. The individual hickories and oaks looked
melancholy in their singular insignificance. Roger felt his own insignificance
complemented. He judged himself a wild thread woven into the tapestry of the
wilderness. Before him was the gauntlet of death. Fear thrilled Roger.
Adrenaline introduced a new lightness into his joints. He was primed to fling
himself into the crater. He could conquer the gap, surpass the shore. After a deep inhalation, he rushed forward with the
frenzy of youth and fell with the weight of pride.
The scent of pine filled Roger's nose as he entered a thicket of coniferous
trees. His feet reveled in the relief the discarded needles offered in their
carpet-like plushness. The increased comfort only made his nausea more
distinct. A bead of sweat trickled into an eye, causing him to blink. Time had
slowed to the pace of the sap trickling out of sores on the trunks about him.
He wanted to be still. He fell to his knees, smashing scurrying insects in the
process.
Just prior to Roger's leap, his right boot found a pocket of loose rock. The
gravel shifted with his weight and absorbed a crucial part of his energy. As
Roger flew forward and began to fall, he realized we would come up short. The
queasiness that accompanies a great drop was multiplied by his terror. An
embankment below was quickly approaching. He had time to regret his idiocy
before the impact. After two futile kicks into the air, he struck the
outcropping. The muffled sound hardly interrupted the quiet evening. He fell
forward, breaking bones and losing consciousness. A crow flying overhead bore
witness to Roger's misguided courageousness. There he lied for hours. A sensation of coolness was the
first memory Roger had after his plummet. So close was he to his target that
his hair had draped into the cold, still water. It was thoroughly dark outside.
At first he could discern nothing of the extent of his injuries. Pain
reverberated throughout his body. He lay sobbing in a contorted heap. The chat
he fell into kept the impact from being fatal, but lacerated his skin
extensively. Roger could not manage to get to his feet. His legs were not
working properly. Drowning in a pool of distress, his mind was not fully
functional either.
Roger began to whimper aloud as he clutched his abdomen. The pressure building
in his side was getting the best of him. For the first time, he began feeling
anxious. He had not seen another man or woman for days. Death was before him
again. Far from home and far from help, thoughts of helplessness began sparking
into his mind. He snuffed them out as best he could, knowing he needed to
remained focused at returning to the trail head. As he was thinking of how
idiotic he had been to strike out alone and unknown into the woods, the
pressure was released with a pop. Roger opened his eyes to see his
denim-covered knees crumpling pine needles. Was he cured? Had it been gas? He felt suspiciously
relieved. Filled with gratitude, he released his concentration and allowed
himself to rest.
Sprawled on the bank, he thought the thoughts of a dying man. Remorse welled
within him. Roger previously was certain he was ready to battle with
nothingness; he thought he could free himself by leaping into the abyss. Facing
mortality would let him become more than human. Now, his fragility screamed through
his nerves. He was neither alive nor dead but on his way from one to the other.
Tears dropped onto the rocks of the bank as unanswered questions cascaded
through his mind. What had happened to his strength? Why was he dying now? Was
he to fade away and become absorbed unbeknownst to anyone? Where was he to file
his complaints against reality? In his state of complete helplessness he was
deserted with his dread. He could not bear the weight of life on his own and
neither could nature. Roger had been alone too long. His solitary confinement
was self-inflicted, brought on by hubris. He needed a companion. He knew now
that there was no kinship with the universe; there was no brotherhood with
impersonal matter.
The external world showed no sympathy with the internal world. Planets twinkled
and stars lit up the clear night sky. He tipped over, exhausted. In a fetal
position, Roger tried to sleep. Being immobile felt slightly better than
moving, but his discomfort had returned in a new guise and kept him awake. He
imagined what his insides looked like, what sort of fatal stew was brewing
within him. With shaky fingers in the morning, Roger tried to shovel the last
of his almonds into his mouth. Before he could bring his jaws together, his
mouth rejected the intrusion. He convulsed in a fit of dry heaves. Roger
suspected his organs were shutting down. The release he felt was merciful, but
not indicative of recovery. He thought it strange that his biological defenses
would lead to death's victory. Every individual function was suspending itself
to prevent damage spreading to other functions. Taken together, the totality of
his body was killing itself in an attempt to save itself. How was it that the
body chose now to die after he had spent so long in trying to live?
There was nothing more to do. Life was leaving him as involuntarily as it
entered him. Roger's blood mingled with the chalky white rocks. On the shore of
an artificial lake, he awaited his end. There was only a choice to make: repent
and resign to his limitations or refuse and revolt. He had attempted to spurn
the world with singularity, but now knew he had gone too far. The wisdom
imparted by suffering allowed him to discern between genuine and false freedom.
If this was what it took to stop him from running, so be it. He passed out of
consciousness again. The whir of a motor jolted him. A
retiree came noticed a motionless figure while he was trolling for bass that
had been introduced to the lake years earlier. He pulled Roger into his boat,
and later up the shore and into his truck. They sped to the nearest hospital,
along fifty miles of painfully jostling country roads. Technology in the hands
of doctors saved his life. Roger's body healed together with his spirit.
The natural world he adored as a boy was superseded by the God he called upon
that desperate night. Both were wonderful for the way their superficial
ambivalence masked a deep-seated, complex goodness. Rain falls on the just and
unjust alike; a loving God allows the innocent to hurt. Neither forgot; both
were always working to incorporate everything. Unlike nature, God did not
operate by cycles. To live forever, one had to die twice; to die forever, one
had to die once. Either way, a person never returned. Roger had been partially
correct. The world ought to be spurned, but not completely and not by beating
it at its own game. The human and inhuman world were irreparably heterogeneous,
containing good and evil, life and death. Purity could not be had by immersing
oneself in either world. Everyone has a sense of the fundamental ambiguities
mixed throughout each. Roger was right not to succumb to the onslaught of his
peers who were impoverished in a different way. He erred leaping for his own
salvation. One drowns as surely in lakes as in tears. One needs to find other
streams to be renewed in.
Roger, confronted by mortality again, refused to despair. His thoughts became
focused with excitement. He prayed to God that He existed. He needed God to
exist. He knew the only necessity in life was necessity itself. People need
something fixed and changeless. It is why they were quick to look to laws and
definitions. Roger wanted the law. He wanted to be held accountable. More than
that, he simply wanted to be held together. He could not endure the thought of
vanishing into nothingness. If he was to never exit the wilderness again, how
could he ever be said to exist? Nature would not remember. She would devour him
with her minions and bury him with her sediments. The memories of those he met
in life would scarcely contain a note on him. Roger rejected the possibility.
He was filled with hope at the possibility of an enduring record keeper. He
prayed to God to give him faith as he lost his equilibrium.
Fallen, Roger terribly wanted to be warm. Turning his dizzy head and lifting
his eyes, he could see an opening in the woods on the horizon. The golden glow
of pure daylight enticed him. He dug his fingers into the moist soil and pulled
himself through the remnants of his stomach. His writhing movements were
awkward but effective. He crossed the terrain by inches rather than feet, but
crossed it all the same. For the first time in hours, he forgot about how awful
he felt. He thought only of the heated honey of sunlight being poured over him at
the end of his toil. Strain was not a lamentable state to Roger. It was the
state of living, and he was glad to feel alive. Twigs and the shells of nuts
clawed at his skin and ripped his clothes as he forced himself over them.
After draining the last of his pool of energy, he reached the clearing. He
splayed out enervated on the glade of igneous rocks that were impervious to
plant life. As Roger lay dying, he wondered what his body looked like to a bird in flight. It seemed to be the perspective nature always took on humanity. He was a
fleck of compressed carbon and water. He was imprisoned within the consuming
forest. He swore he felt a compassionate warden comfort him with a blanket of
light. He strained to see, but the muscles in Roger's neck refused to obey his
will. His head dropped onto a pillow of lichen-covered granite. Orange-red
seeped through his eyelids like light shone through amber. He no longer felt
pain; he was done dying. He only felt tired. He released himself from his body.
Roger, who had closed his eyes moments before, exhaled and died again.
