Do the trees have eyes?
Is it raining? I cannot tell, for the shadows of the branches outside my cabin’s glass window obscure my vision and leave me completely dazed. The branches scrape against my window, leaving marks like the scars of many things that have tried to take my life. I am barely aware of this strange sensation that lingers in my mind, pondering what is outside, hiding in those sinister shadows.
I can hear them now…whispering among the ragged branches in the grey twilight gloom. What are they? What do they want with me? Why are they watching my every move? I can hear them breathe, like a gush of icy wind in winter, sitting motionless and taunting me to come outside. The wind screams above my roof, and the trees eerily sway like hidden parlance of yore.
What do you want from me? Why won’t you leave me alone? Why must I listen to your taunts? But no, they will not answer. The void I feel inside cannot be explained, like Cherokee paintings it swirls around and leaves me hopeless to understand why I am here.
I realize they are my memories of old, the ones I regret, and wish I could take back. They are the things that haunt me and taunt me to come out in the forbidden forest. To face them eye to eye, and to make me perish before them. This cannot go on any longer, the hidden mysteries of nature binds and things I regret must be burnt away.
Creaking wooden door, rough porch floor, freezing cold wind of terror. The pine needle pathway crunches like forgotten photographs under me. Frostbite lingers near, laughing and waiting for its moment of gleeful opportunity. The whispers turn into shouts, louder and louder, longer and longer, until a cacophony of cracked glass panes surround me. Mirrors reflect me from within and I stare like no one into the far beyond.
It cannot be true. I refuse to accept the poisonous speakings of my life. Like a waterfall I call with all my might for redemption and pour out my longing to leave. A thunderous orange and golden fire erupts like an eagle from the frozen black ground and gloriously roars in triumph. The haunting sounds are quickly drowned in the magnificent symphony of flames and fire. A beam of sunlight slivers through a crack in the dark depressed clouds.
Embers joyfully dance in celebration. Looking up to the sky, a smile breaks across my face. An eagle of fire emerges and soars across the ocean of foggy air. Gently lifting me up, it takes me away, higher and higher above the clouds, to my home among the starry constellations.
I have never been more happy in my life.