The Forest

I watched My Neighbor Totoro, today, which I think may influence this quite a bit. Miyazaki's films often put me in a nature/spirit sort of mood. Once again, I'm not going anywhere, just messing around.

***

The air smelled like dirt. Maggie scrunched up her nose. Wet dirt, and growing things. She took another deep sniff, and decided she actually liked it. It smelled like a forest should.

Maggie stepped along the trail, slowly and carefully, one foot in front of the other. Indians walked like this, she'd learned somewhere. She imagined herself as a member of a hunting party, following in the footsteps of the person in front of her. Breathing through her nose, she listened for the sound of the leaves underneath her feet.

Loud and raucous laughter came from down the trail and Maggie frowned, pausing; she looked up. She'd fallen behind her classmates. Mrs. Kravitz had stressed that they needed to keep together, but she hadn't noticed. The boys were taking all her concentration to keep in line--Maggie watched as she shushed them, and looked at the group bunched around her. Her hair was coming out of her bun, and Maggie almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

Maggie shook her head and looked back down at her feet. She started walking again. Left foot, right foot. Her imaginary quiver of arrows bumped against her back with every step. Their party was stalking a herd of deer, and she listened to the sounds of the forest. A rustle in the bushes. A bird call overhead. Her head snapped up and she watched the bird flit above her, across the trail and into the trees where it disappeared in the leaves.

Turing her attention back to her feet, Maggie suddenly noticed the quiet. She had been listening intently for some time, but one sound was missing--that of her classmates. She looked up the trail, which rose before her, but there was no one there.

Maggie picked up her pace, clambering over the tree roots to reach the top of the rise. The trail sloped away from her, winding down into a gully, before turning out of sight. No classmates. No teacher.

Thinking back to the map they'd been shown at the start of the hike, Maggie grinned. In her mind's eye she could see the different trails, squiggly lines of red, yellow and blue making their way through the green expanse. They had taken the red trail, but Maggie remembered noticing that it crossed paths with the longer blue trail. She must have missed the intersection while watching her feet, and taken the wrong fork.

Well, the blue trail had to end back at the park's entrance like the others. Maggie continued on, reveling in the knowledge that she was alone. She breathed deeply, looking all around her. Every leaf on the ground, every twig on a tree, every bird trill and every breeze in the canopy seemed sharp and clear. It was like she was the only person in the world.

It was not long that she came to the tree. Not a tree, like the others. The tree. As soon as she saw it, Maggie new it was special. Big, and obviously old, it made the other trees around it seem like young little saplings. Slowly she walked up to it and put her hand on its trunk. The bark was rough, and damp. On an impulse, she wrapped her arms around it in a hug. She guessed it would take four more of her to get all the way around.

"Quite a beauty, isn't he?"

Maggie gasped and whirled around. She stared. It was like an illustration from one of her books had come to life--an Indian was stepping out of the bushes on to the trail behind her. He smiled at her.

"Who are you?" Maggie was somewhat distracted--was he really wearing moccasins? was that a real bow?--so the question was the first thing that came to mind.

"A guide," he said simply, a smile tugging at his lips.

Maybe he was a guide for the park, like the actors at historical villages. Deciding that made sense, Maggie relaxed. "Why did you call the tree 'he?'"

The guide walked over and lay his hand on the bark, as Maggie had. "Well, this is a special tree. They say a spirit of a man lives in it."

Maggie craned her neck and looked up into its branches. "Does he protect the forest?"

"In a way," the guide replied. He chuckled. "Yes, I suppose that is a good way of saying it. He watches over the forest, and the people and animals who live in it."

Maggie thought about this. "Does he help them?"

"Sometimes. He might, for example, help a lost girl find her way home." His eyes crinkled as he said this, like Uncle's Will's did, and Maggie knew he was teasing her.

"I'm not lost," she declared. "I just took a different trail."

"Well, then. Shall we?" The guide motioned to the trail, and they started down it together, side by side.

The walked in silence for a minute or two, but soon Maggie had to satisfy her curiosity. "So who is the spirit?"

"Hm?" The guide looked at her. "There are many stories. One is of a great warrior, who died underneath the tree's boughs after saving his village. Another is of a wise man, a shaman, who lived a long life serving his people and the forest. It is said that when he died of old age his spirit remained in the tree, to continue his work."

After a pause, Maggie spoke again. "I think it must be lonely."

"Why do you say that, little girl?" He seemed amused, for some reason.

"Well, people don't live in the forest any more. Mrs. Kravitz said that the Indians moved on when the Europeans came." Maggie nearly said "except for you," but didn't think it was polite to pry.

"Ah... yes, it is true the People are gone. Perhaps he is lonely." The guide sounded a bit sad, but he smiled at her. "But it is only a story, after all."

Maggie nodded.

***

Hm. I think the voice changed somewhere in the second or third paragraph. Gotta work on that. I'm also not happy with the way I'm expressing things at the moment (it lacks description, for one), and I ran out of steam before the end. But I'm enjoying myself, so I won't stress about it. ^_^

I'm back~

It's been over four months, but I'm back. After finishing 30 Days I lost momentum, and I've decided the best way to get that back is to start writing every day again. I don't plan on a particular time span--it might be 30 days, it might be 3 months, it might be a year. Who knows.

Since there's less structure this time, I'm going to worry less about missing days. If I'm tired or busy, there's always tomorrow. The only excuse I won't allow is lack of inspiration. What the hell is this writer's block, anyways? We'll have no more of that. ^_^

This is nothing in particular--no idea where it will go, if anywhere. I'm just trying to get back into writing in general.

***

The house began as a few lines drawn in the margins of Anne's math homework. A simple floor plan, it wouldn't have seemed much to anyone else. There was a bathroom, a small bedroom, a kitchen with an eating nook, and a sitting area.

A small house, just big enough for a single person to live in (and perhaps a cat). No sharing the bathroom during the morning rush, no sitting cramped at the kitchen table, elbows knocking. Oh, and no snoring through thin walls.

The paper itself was turned in the next day. It was returned graded (13/15), and later lost, but the lines remained in Anne's memory. That summer when she visited her grandfather she spent hours reading on his front porch, relaxing in the warm breezes. A few mental strokes added a porch, and a few curves a hammock.

Apartment life during college added small things--a clothes washer, a desk. The book shelves she had imagined in the sitting area grew bigger, as did her imagined closet.

Several years later, as Anne lay next to Mark late one night, she made the bedroom large enough for a queen-sized bed. She moved the bathroom, erasing lines and drawing others, and fit in a nursery next door. Closing her eyes, she thought that yellow was a nice color for the walls. Or perhaps green.

Far too soon, though, there was no need for a larger bed and a larger bedroom to accommodate it. A few lines made short work of the bedroom, and in the nursery it was easy to make the cot a sofa bed, the changing table a desk. Easy to draw the lines, at least; harder to erase the lines that had come before them. She never could get rid of their ghosts left by her eraser.

The night Anne was phoned by the hospital, she added a building to her house. Unable to sleep on the unexpected flight, she imagined it to stave off her worry. A stone's throw from the main house... She listed the things it would have. A kitchenette, an accessible bathroom with rails and a seat in the tub, a bedroom with no obstacles for tripping. The last was foremost in her mind.

Early the next morning, when she entered the room and saw her dad in the bed, and her mother sleeping in the chair next to him, she moved the building closer.

***

Well, it's a short start, and I don't know how to end it, but that doesn't matter. I like the concept, but at the moment this is more of an outline than a story. Ah well~ ^_^