I Will Not Die

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After spending a long afternoon working his way through the woods, a young man came to a thicket. It was a dark mess of branches and leaves, all intertwined to the degree that no light seemed to pierce any of it at all.

The young man rolled up his sleeves.

He always enjoyed the challenges that came from complexity. That this thicket was a mere literal representation of that complexity made no difference to him.

He liked the challenges because he had learned that sometimes the most comprehensive truths lived beyond the view of the thickest brush.

He spread the first few branches and turned sideways and squeezed himself past reluctant and bending pieces of thin wooden sticks that scratched his arms and his face.

He felt stuck. Nevertheless, he continued to slip his arms and torso past more branches. Like a skilled artisan, he didn’t force his way with great effort, but rather, felt where all the little snags were and moved in small ways inching himself along.

Before long, he had completely escaped the sun. After a few minutes more, he felt his hands touch something hard, and cool.

“Concrete? Out here?”

His body was pressed up against a wall that smelled of moss. With the thicket at his back, and the wall at his front, he inched along sideways eager to discover what he might. His chest glided effortlessly along while the tense branches behind him continued to tug at his clothes.

After a few minutes more, the lower part of the wall gave way to a dark, horizontal opening. He crouched down and looked inside.

Through the darkness there was a single beam of light that met his eye. The source of the beam of light was at a great distance. He got down on his hands and knees and began to crawl through the darkness.

Once fully inside, he felt as though he was in a cave, though unlike a natural cave, this concrete one had all the sturdiness that man-made things have. He carefully inched his way along, feeling on his outstretched palms the damp and cool slab beneath him. The sounds he heard were unusual because they had an echo to them as they reflected off the walls. He heard crickets and what he thought was the sound of dripping water.

Eventually, the beam of light became wider and brighter. He could see now that still some distance before him there was an opening beyond which he could see more woods. He continued working his way along, watching the light in front of him get bigger and bigger.

Finally, he arrived at the end of the cave and stuck his head back out into the day.

*****

Once he fully emerged, he stood up. There was no thicket. The woods before him sloped downward and he could see a small pond. He made his way down the slope until he was at the edge of the water.

The pond itself was only about a hundred feet across and toward his right there was a wide bank. Behind that bank was a hill that led back up to where he had emerged.

He went to the wide bank and sat down on the log of an old oak tree. After a short while of staring at the water and taking everything in, he saw a splash in the water a few feet to his right.

The center of the splash has a thin line that extended up from it. He followed the line up until his eyes rested on an old man sitting in a tree.

Amused, the young man asked, “Say old man, what are doing in that tree?”

“I am fishing,” said the old man.

“Why not fish from down here? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“I like it very much up here,” said the old man. “I can see things much more clearly and for a much greater distance from up here.”

“But what happens when you catch a fish? Must you climb down each time you catch a fish?”

“No. I don’t ever catch any fish.”

“Quite the fisherman,” said the young man smiling.

*****

After a moment or two, the old man said, “So what brings you here?”

The young man said, “I was exploring. You see I found a thicket on the other side of that wall up there.”

“Ah, you found the nearly impassable thicket. Quite the explorer,” said the old man smiling.

“But isn’t that what explorers do?”

“Not necessarily.”

“So why do you come here and fish, but never catch fish old man?”

“Don’t you know? Age is sometimes a ruse.”

“So you’re younger than you look, is that what you’re telling me old man?”

“Not at all. Why don’t you come up here with me. I’ve got some things I’d like to share with you.”

“It’s getting late,” said the young man. “I really must be getting back. I don’t have time to talk.”

“Talk? I told you,” smiled the old man, “I am fishing.”

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Dereck :: Oct.16.2008 :: Fiction :: 8 Comments »

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