Trudger

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night a candle burned in the window.

‘Somebody must be squatting in that old cabin,’ said Woodrow, peering through the binoculars.

‘Oh yeah?! Give me a look.’

Henny snatches the binoculars from Woodrow and peers through. He sees the candle in the window when something flashes past knocking it over.

‘Whoops, something’s going on in there.’

‘So you're right for me to drop you here?’

‘Yeah mate, thanks.’

‘And just to add a cherry to the top of your mountain adventure. The story goes, every time there’s a candle lit in that window a killer emerges from some unknown quagmire and kills somebody at the peak of their lives here in the woods.’

Henny stands at the door totally unfazed by the remark as Woodrow waits eagerly for a reaction before bursting into anxious laughter.

‘HAHAHA, but you’ll be right mate you look like you are on the other end of that. More like the trough. Ha!’

‘Well, you’re lucky you aren’t coming with me then.’

Henny laughs.

‘thanks again.’

Henny had finished work for the week and hitched a ride with a fella called Woodrow to spend a couple of days exploring the mountains. There was a lot going on for him in his day to day and he needed space for his thoughts to catch up with him.

Going into the mountains was his ritual of returning to himself and letting off the steam of the city pace. It was never really organised, just spontaneous as if the universe conspired to deliver him to the bush at particular times in his life.

He waves goodbye to Woodrow, his heart sinking as the dribbles of convenience disappear beyond his grasp, leaving a dusty glowing haze floating at the top of the hill. The sinking, a familiar feeling before entering the wild human once again. A discomfort before adaptation, learning and living.

‘I am about to live and participate more fully.’

Taking a deep breath Henny throws his pack on and turns to face the cabin. A soft glow could be seen through the window. The cabin was across the valley on a rocky outcrop overlooking a wide open marsh that disappeared into dense tall forest on the other side. The tall forest was Henny’s destination for the night.

The moon was bright and full, illuminating the landscape in ghostly still shades of sparkling grey and black. The sky, full of racing clouds sending fast moving shadows across the landscape. But the air around him was still, the trees don’t even sway. Henny trudged downhill with fresh legs, sucking in the crisp cold mountain air through his nose.

‘This is amazing. What beauty, what beauty amounts from random variables colliding and creating this strange phenomena. How many magic moments do I miss with my impatient mind rushing about getting trivial shallow time tasks completed.’

Stepping down onto a flat, grassy-wide fire trail Henny felt the temperature drop. The valley’s concentrated stare falling steeply into its deepest crevice.

‘Woah.’

He looked up at the cabin, the windows glowing brightly. Feeling comforted by the warm presence and the idea that there was a friendly family playing cards by the fire on the inside.

‘Brrr…’

Rubbing his chest Henny turned and set down the fire trail. Big old trees seemed to stretch out like tunnelling mazes. A weaving of powerful branches lit up by the power of his head torch as the path dropped off into darkness up ahead.

Henny began to wonder when he was going to hit the marsh just as he noticed the ground becoming spongey, soft and wet beneath him.

‘Hope my shoes hold out.’

The track got increasingly soggy as it began to open up to the wide morass. The clouds flashed across the silvery still puddles of water as Henny focused on his footing, placing each footstep on a tuft of grassy reeds.

Quails burst forth, a violent flight from a recoiling bush. Henny’s heart bashes from within his chest in excited pre-emptive flight.

‘Chill Henny. Walk the adrenalin off, get the feet back on the ground and that mind back into the body.’

Impatient thoughts fluttering hurriedly lifting his step clumsily. Each checked footing forward and he is back in his body, yet a gravity tears his attention endlessly to the right. Shadows of past wildfire scars playing tricks on the imagination. Fear such a readily available reaction. Creative minds building evil that does not exist until acted upon.

But wait, let’s simply dispel this illusion to the right of my periphery. Henny thought to himself.

His head turns without hesitation, teeth clenched down hard, his neck moving against a countering protective mechanism functioning on a muscular level and bang! It’s a tree.

Figures of old rotten tree stumps with drooping maimed limbs.

‘Ha…’

Henny hesitated to think of them as shadowy silhouettes for long, and quickly replaced the thought.

‘Trees, beautiful trees.’

Swinging back, stepping forward and a dragging scraping sensation claws at his scalp pulling the beanie clean off.

‘What?!’

A dancing foot forward careless for sureness meets a deep muddy pool. Wetness for a potential life threatening attack is an easy trade.

Nothing, just a stick across the track.

‘Idiot.’

A familiar bludgeoning of his own imploding stupidity knocks his soul out.

Crawling up and out of the muddy puddle, a quiet sound lands in the grass behind him snapping him back, and its that same stick now fallen down on the track.

Winding self up, evil thoughts piling in pushing a sinful reaction. Careful kids this guy is stirred up he might pop you in the face as the mind manifests the devil with any accessible scapegoat in the crosshairs.

Breath, welcome to country.

‘Sorry I am Henny, you do know me, thank you for having me here in your sacred country, I promise to be as respectful as I can, and be in service, please have mercy for my failings and my human bumbling and stumbling. I am but a child of the universe who is learning to walk. Please hold the gentle hand of forgiveness at the ready as I do confess I am a fool. Be my teacher.’

Henny stopped for a moment, dropping his shoulders and feeling into his body. He looked down at his heavy wet boots, having a little laugh imagining what it would have looked like witnessing this little moment.

This thought directed his attention to the cabin once again.

The glow from the windows was flashing unusually bright with large flicking licks of light, of flame. The cabin was on fire on the inside and smoke was squeezing out from every gap.

Henny made a sudden shift forward upon this realisation, his mouth wide open and his mind flickering like the hungry flames in the distance. The comfortable thought of a cosy family scene was shattered with an adrenalin drop.

Staring, the cabin obscured by a strange darkness from the smoke and a violent illumination from the flames. It is too far away and his heart sinks into a practiced apathy. A connection intentionally removed as the heart threatens to explode.

If there was a family in there, they would be burnt to a crisp by the time he got there. And if he got there what would he do?

He walked over to a nearby stump, took his pack off and sat down leaning against the old remains of the tree.

The fire raged, spitting orange light across the valley. It almost looked like a strange sunset with the clouds reflecting the rays of light as the pools of water throughout the marsh caught the passing clouds glow.

How beautiful and catastrophic. He imagined the perfect family asleep after a beautiful day in nature, followed by a warm dinner and cards by the fire. A perfect family with many dreams and pathways laid out before them taken at this peak of happiness, drifting from sleep to formless consciousness. Being shot up by the smoke caught by the mountain gale above and sling shotted out into the universe. Such a perfect death. A poem so tragically beautiful.

Henny, caught in wonder of such an obscure and fascinating experience, sat still as his whole being relaxed, surrendering against the burnt stump. A familiar knot of anxiety was rising up through his body, uncoiling itself and releasing a deeply forgotten, unnamed grief. Up into his throat, cheeks, growing heavy and full behind his eyes. He felt a light flexing of his muscles, attempting to stem the flow in a reflexive shame. But it was too great and the dam broke with a lurching sob into his hands. He cried uncontrollably with a surprise and relief that cooled his body. As if the flow of energy throughout his being was washed by the tears.

Slowly coming back to his surroundings, his clothes soaked by the nights heavy dew as a wind crept down from the racing clouds licking a snap of a goosebumps recoiling and sparking an awareness of the deep cold through to his bones.

He looked up at the burning remains of the hut, picked up his pack and began to trudge through the marsh. With water up to his waist he began to reflect upon the deaths he witnessed from afar and the release of all that he was holding.

What a strange spectacle I observed, doing nothing. Is this fucked up?

He began to wonder if there was something he could have done. Maybe call emergency services, no reception, but there is the SOS call. They wouldn’t have made it anyway.

Feeling sorry himself, for the deceased cosy family.

Cold and alive he pushed on, growing an increased confidence the more gnarly it became. The wind howled from every direction. A fierce animalistic joy creased into his face as he pushed into the gale soaking wet with a fire burning inside.

Climbing over the sharp rocky outcrops he rolled himself over the last ledge greeting the fire with an ancient returning after a great adventure.

Henny fell asleep by the burning cabin.

Waking to the sound of footsteps.

‘What the fuck happened here?! Who are you and where is my wife and daughter?’

‘Umm, I’m sorry they…’

‘What?! We were going to meet here. But the cabins gone. They must be nearby. Did you see them?’

‘No.’

Henny didn’t know what to do. He witnessed it all, did nothing and knew that there must have been at least someone in the cabin.

‘They were going to stay here.’

The man stared at the glowing coals.

He began to kick the charred remains of the building about with a worrying recklessness as an emotional take over crept across his self preservation instincts. He began to dig his hands into the red coals, lifting them out and throwing them sporadically.

Henny leapt forth grabbing the man, crashing dangerously close to the cliff’s edge. The man in clear pain with the flesh of his hands melted and burnt to the bone. He screamed, rolling off Henny back into the fire. Howling and digging deeper and deeper. The smell of burnt hair thick in the air as the charred remains of the cabin relit around the man.

Henny watched.

What passion, what beauty to be driven through physical pain by an even greater force.

The man slowed as his cries gurgled with boiling blood, dropping to his knees he too succumbed to the blaze.

Henny sat there mesmerised and feeling strangely blessed. What a peculiar experience?

He walked around stoking the fire with burnt ends, until all that remained were three bodies. He giggled as he saw that the father was nowhere near where the mother and daughter were.

Time to go. Henny threw on his pack and hiked back to the road. He didn’t have to wait long before a young couple stopped to pick him up.

‘Have you been living in the bush?’ Asked the bloke at the wheel.

‘Nah, I just come out here every so often. When I am called to this place.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Didn’t do too much this time. Just observed and enjoyed. Have to build another cabin though.'