Far

We walked far that day. We walked into the woods so far. We walked so far, we walked out of our own stories. You can do that. You have to do that. You have to walk real far, so far you get out of your story.

So the two of us were out of our stories. Finally, after all that walking. It was really so many silent foosteps that we didn’t even count like…I don’t know…Lord of the Rings.

We walked so far we saw a skeleton in a tree. It had an expression, but only one.

Still, we felt it looking at us. Even dead, it was effective, like so many other dead and effective things.

It must be accorded respect. It is a certain achievement. I mean to die in a tree. It takes a certain sort of seriousness. That was a serious animal. The creature said, I will die in this tree. And it died in that tree. And then snows and rains and tornadic winds and that skeleton just stayed right there. Glowering down from death. When it was alive, it was the sort of creature to be mocked, especially in cartoons, but in death it had a certain picayune majesty. Oh, not for the sort of guy who hangs deer heads on his living room wall so he can stare at them in between clueless glances at Wheel of Fortune. Not that guy. Someone with a little bit more of a feeling for the Earth Mother. Someone sappy like a tree.

Then we turned and looked at each other. As though there were a room we had reached. A necessary and well-appointed room. No way a motel room. But it was just some green branches, spruce and pine and fir and I don’t know which were…