Never-ending Woods

• Crystal Fu Chen, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2021

A dim yellow ray illuminated the white laid on the mahogany table before my eyes, raw and senseless. With each vigorous scratch, scribble and scrawl, sharp pain shot through my being, urging my hand to cease. Quivering, my fists scrunched up, tossed aside yet another abominable mess. But I couldn’t control the ferocity inside of me, willing me to continue my search, for my life depended on this creation. What would it take for not just a satisfactory, but also compelling concept to come to me?

Think outside the box… think…

Brisk wind, blasting, almost shattering eardrums. Gnarly, overgrown woods, shadows looming from the distance. Withering ripples of grass, queerly pale, all around. Darkness, bleak and blinding. Putrid smell penetrating the nose.

How could I do that when the outside was so despondent?

My heart was clutched by fear. Surely, this turmoil was not what I was looking for. So cold, desperate and afraid. I was just as pathetic as the mangy and hideous sketches hiding in the crumpled pieces of rubbish laying beside my feet. Cowardly. But of course, I had to take action. This wouldn't do. It was time to prove myself wrong, prove I was worth something, prove I could discover the answer. I crawled through the dust, my limbs screaming and aching like they had never before. Through the fallen trees threatening to impale me with their jagged branches, through the dead grass, reaching out from the desolate ground, gazing at the small amount of light peeking through the lurid clouds.

At first, my thought was, perhaps the present wasn’t so desolate, the future so ominous. But when I glanced again at the direction I was headed, I gasped. In front of me was a forest of red, orange and brown, vividly permeating my vision. Each leaf floated down in long curved sweeps before landing on soft piles of others. The further I walked, the more warmth infused in my body. I found myself back in the light, alone yet content with the images before me.

In that fleeting moment, I realised that it was not the present or the future that shaped my work. All the emotions flooding through me, conducting the strokes of my pencil, filling the page with everything inside of me, were from my memories. Seeing the art before me infused my heart with a bittersweet feeling. The truth was, I hadn’t ever been outside after all – what I was searching for had been deep inside me all along; I just needed to explore deep into the woods of my mind to rediscover my true purpose. Every inch into the forest brought back a part of me I’d long forgotten.

And yet, each time a piece is filled with a myriad of shades, I slump back into the little chair, close my eyes, and soon the cycle of unknowing echoes into my mind once more, throbbing with frustration and dissatisfaction but at the same time, yearning for answers.