Yellow Wood

• Emily Mead, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2010

It was the middle of a bright autumn day. Cat was walking through the Yellow Woods, stopping every now and again to appreciate the woody smells and bird calls. Today, she had thought just that morning, was a day to take a walk in Yellow Wood.
Yellow Wood was so named simply because of the vast amount of yellow shrubbery that dotted its paths. In autumn, like at the present, yellow leaves would come tumbling down from the trees, falling to the floor, where they would remain forever.

That was odd. Cat had come to a fork in the path. Now, two very different paths led the way ahead.
‘I don’t remember a fork in the path,’ Cat said to herself, puzzled. One trail was dark and gloomy, the other filled with sunlight. Was this a test? The obvious path would be the sunlit one, but something told Cat that she should take the other path; the one filled with darkness. For minutes, she stood there, pondering. The right path, filled with gloominess, leered out. The left fork tantalisingly urged her to follow its sunlit path. Eventually, she decided, and closed her eyes as she took the right path.
Cold winds whipped her face, their icy claws digging at her. Cat shuddered, and hoped she had made the right choice. Without looking back, she walked forward, pulling her jacket close around her. The path was uneven and hard; it clearly had not been trodden by many people. An overwhelming sense of regret filled Cat, but she kept walking.

Rain suddenly poured from the sky, drenching Cat from head to toe. Brambles tore at her hair and thorns pricked her hands. Wind whipped her face and soon her nose was red.
But through this, Cat just kept on walking. It was if nature wanted to defy her; wanted her to fail. So, because of that, she held her head up high. She was determined not to let nature get the better of her.
For what seemed like hours, she walked and walked. Several times, she burst into tears, wondering where she was and how she could ever get home. But finally, at long last, she was rewarded. The dense woodland cleared, to reveal a bright green meadow. Cat fell to her knees, sobbing with happiness. Butterflies flew past; a gentle breeze lifted her hair. And as Cat stood up, she realised something. There was no wrong choice. Every new choice made the future, no matter which choice it was. Right choices, wrong choices. What did they matter? Whatever choice you made, it was the right choice; because why else would there be choices for us to make?
And it just went to show that the easy choice wasn’t the only choice. Both had their rewards, and both had their sacrifices. It wasn’t anyone else’s decision to what path you take. Only your heart can lead you to the answer; the answer which you must ultimately discover for yourself.