A Constant Will

• Karen Yu, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2009

I tumbled through the scratchy undergrowth, trying to find direction in the darkness, to no avail. I looked up, squinting through the dense canopy. Where was the moon? Where were the stars? The heavy branches blocked out the sky. The darkness was overwhelming.

I crouched down to the floor, brushing my fingers against the ground. Where was the paved concrete path I had strayed from? I patted my hands against the ground gently, carefully. They were greeted with the soft feather touch of dry leaves and crushed twigs. I had wandered too far from the path, too deep into this unwelcoming and unfamiliar forest. I was lost.

This thought inspired a surge of overwhelming panic. I ran, screaming through the bushes, my shrieks reverberating off the thick tree trunks. A cruel branch reached out to grab my shirt and dropped me to the hard floor. As I lay there, sobbing pitifully and thoroughly exhausted, I pulled fallen ferns around myself and slowly slipped into sleep.

When I awoke from my unsettled doze the next morning, the darkness remained.

The sun had failed to rise that morning.

I pulled my knees to my chest and hugged myself, as if I could shield myself from this eerie occurrence. In the absence of my shrieks and tears, the silence of the forest seemed unnatural. Suffocating. If anything, the silence seemed to grow louder, like a hot buzzing against the sound of my heartbeat rising in my ears. My vision swooned and wavered. The dark silhouettes of trees became vague.

In sudden defiance, I stood up and screamed, tearing through the silence with a shrill shout. No no no, this forest will not defeat me. I may be a child of the 21st century and disturbingly dependant on technology but that same disabling reliance saved me.

Whipping my mobile phone from my pocket, I slid open the screen. For a moment, my eyes riled back in shock at the abrupt burst of light. No signal the screen read. Undaunted, I pointed the bright screen towards the ground and began to run, searching for the paved road. The sound of crisp leaves crunching underfoot kept the fearsome silence at bay.

The path! Keeping the light of my mobile phone steady, I ran towards the concrete path. As I stepped onto it, I felt relief, savouring the feeling of firm solid reality under my feet. Striding along the path, I emerged into the open to find my family packing away the picnic basket and folding away our tents. As I ran to join them, I relished the sun’s gentle caress on my skin and the cheerful chatter of ducks waddling past.

Later, as I sat in the security of the family car, driving away from the forest and out of the parklands, I glanced back. No, it wasn’t a formidable forest at all; just a small thicket of trees in a sun-drenched glade.