The Forest

“You’re not in danger. You’re just losing it,” Arthur said aloud to himself. He let out a wry laugh before stopping to lean against a wide tree trunk to catch his wheezing breath. It had been hours. Again, he found himself needing to rest. Exhaustion was setting in for the day. The feeling came earlier and earlier. Having done this day in and day out, he had lost so much weight that his shoes were almost one size too large. He turned his gaze to the darkening canopy high above his head. He had been on the move since before the sun was high in the sky. No matter which turns he switched with another or whether he ventured north or south, it was the same sunrise and the same sunset every day. Just a hike that endlessly looped like the hike he had done yesterday and the day before that and the day before that…

Now, cicadas sang their evening songs, getting louder as his surroundings grew dimmer. So damned loud. Louder than the wheeze finally starting to quiet in his tight chest. A mist of cool rain sprinkled through the full leaves of the swaying treetops. The storm would eventually strengthen, and it would be time to turn in soon. The downpour would come in nearly blinding sheets that sent heavy raindrops to peck the top of his head until he had a headache. He had tried to trek through it once before and learned his lesson the hard way. The thought made him grit his yellowing teeth together. He winced as his gums ached. He just wanted the cycle to end. He just wanted to get out of this forest and go home.

“Your name is Arthur McGahey. You’re thirty-one years old. You live in Sydney. Your girlfriend- Your girlfriend’s name is…” Arthur chewed his bottom lip as the fleeting thought escaped him. He had not seen his girlfriend in a week. He kept track by counting the sunrises and sunsets. Except… Wait. She was not his girlfriend. She had broken up with him over lunch at their favorite café. That was why he went hiking in the first place. It was supposed to help him clear his head and sort through his feelings. The breakup had blindingly come from left field. He had been planning to propose marriage to her the next week, but she had greeted him with a stiff hug and a quiet conversation over warm tea about how she no longer wanted to be with him because he spent too much time at the damned office. The breakup was still fresh in his tired mind, but he couldn’t remember her name. It was one less thing than what he had been able to remember the day before.

The dreary brown and green foliage of the unnamed forest seemed to hide his entire existence. The trees were bent and warped into unusual, foreboding shapes. That rock there… It almost resembled the top of a skull, didn’t it? He frowned and sucked in a deep breath as panic intruded on his nerves. He had been trekking this forest for some time now. His worry landed back on the woman he had spent three years loving. He thought of the disconnected, cold stare in her blue eyes from across the small table. She urged him to continue searching for happiness and enjoying life. Looking down at his clothing, ripped on reaching branches and falling to pieces with every step, he wondered if she were okay and if she even missed him. His boots were uncomfortable from repeated wear. There were purple bruises on his bony knees and elbows from his falls over the uneven, half-buried roots and stones. His mind was getting stuffier with each passing day.

Readjusting the knapsack on his aching shoulders, he trudged onward again. He knew the trek would take him to the same place it had been taking him for a while now. The only semblance he had of any time passing was the sun’s rays coming and going. The inhaler in his pocket was much lighter now, nearly empty. The prescription was brand new when he left the city for the trail. His chest burned, but he knew he had to reserve what few medicinal puffs he had left for a more severe sensation if it ever happened. His grubby fingers scratched at the scruffy, red beard now covering his dimpled chin. He had shaved before leaving for the pharmacy.

Tears burned in his tired green eyes as the ivy-covered side of the all too familiar cabin came into view. A circle, right back to where he started. Again. His calves ached. Clenching his hands into tight fists by his sides, he fought against the anger welling inside of him as he approached the weathered cabin door. It squeaked as it swung open, welcoming him back to what had been his home for far too long. The raindrops falling through the canopy were heavier now. The headache would arrive if he didn’t take refuge and it didn’t help that his legs felt like they were no longer connected to his body. It was time to go inside.

With a reluctant sigh, he stepped into the cabin and slammed the door with the strength he could muster. His tired eyes slowly scanned the dim, wide room. It was just how he had left it that morning. His periwinkle quilt was folded into a neat square on the corner of the corduroy couch. A thin film of dust covered the small window across from the couch. He chuckled to himself. Using an old rag he had found among the empty cabinets, he was sure he had wiped the window clean this morning before he left. Or had it been yesterday morning? Or the day before that? It was becoming hard to tell anymore. The hot-plate he had scavenged from a molded box in the corner of the room sat on the wooden table in front of the ripped couch. He had not touched it for days now; his hunger had vanished along with any thought he had of seeing anyone else ever again. Nothing edible crossed his path in the forest anymore anyway. After kicking off his wet boots and propping the beige knapsack in the corner closest to the door, Arthur let his exhausted body collapse onto the couch.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he let out a muffled scream against the thick cushion. He screamed until his lungs and chest burned as badly as his over-worked legs. With a barrage of loud sobs, Arthur released all the frustration, disappointment, and confusion that had been harbored for the day. In one, shaky movement, he swung his legs over the side of the couch and sat upright.

“Is this my atonement? Did I do something so wrong to end up here? In purgatory? Or is this Hell?” he asked. The responding silence made his ears ring until a low rumble of thunder from the sky above answered.

“Right on time,” he muttered. Arthur struck a match and lit the fireplace, his only source of light in the cabin. He had learned it was best to try and warm the room before the downpour set in or he would shiver all night. He remembered being a child and how his arms would cover in goosebumps whenever the temperature dipped even slightly.

“I told you to put on a bigger jacket, Arty,” he recited what his mother used to always say, and it made him laugh. The older woman had even tried to talk him into joining the Boy Scouts, but he wanted to stick to his video games. Perhaps that one simple decision in his youth could have been beneficial in the long run. The laugh in his throat was both at his mother and at himself. It hurt his dry throat and he remembered the pail collecting rainwater that he had set just outside of the door. His legs were too tired and sore to even consider moving. Carefully sliding from the cushion to the bare, wooden floor, his chuckles gave way to another wave of inconsolable sobs. The heat from the tame flames warmed his face, drying his cheeks enough for the next set of tears to make new tracks down toward his itchy beard. He thought of his mother once more. She was probably worried sick by now because he always called her every day. He hadn’t touched a phone since he had left for this hike. His mother was his next best hope at getting help. He missed her and hoped she would notice his absence. He hoped she would know nothing of the breakup, and she would contact his ex. He was smart enough to tell her he would more than likely take a hike to feel better. His hope at survival danced on whether the woman he loved would share that detail with the woman who had brought him into this world.

“Pull it together, mate. You’re losing it,” Arthur whispered for a second time that day as he wiped his face dry and sucked in several deep breaths to control himself.

Sleep would never come. Every time he thought he felt a tug at his eyelids, a tree outside of the cabin would groan or a twig would snap, and he would wait. Waiting, sometimes praying, for someone or something to come barreling through the cabin door. It would sneak in like the blanket of darkness that came with nighttime and it would end him. Only one person knew where he had gone, and she had abandoned him. He had only wanted to free his mind for a few hours. Now he was trapped in an endless loop of mistakes - neglecting his relationship to stare at a computer screen in a crowded, high-rise building for a meager salary, ignoring his friends’ invitations to play cards or see a movie or grab a drink until they stopped contacting him altogether and brushing off the Boy Scouts. Mistake after mistake brought him here.

Arthur lay on the couch. Tomorrow would be another day of wandering; another day of hoping just a slight deviation from his previous path would lead somewhere new. He was starting to miss his… Was it a cat or a dog? Perhaps a goldfish? Arthur groaned and pressed the heels of his thinning hands into his closed eyes until he saw blooming stars. Another memory deteriorating. Just like he was. Deteriorating into madness, into malnourished nothingness, into the moss-covered forest floor until he was nothing except a root or rock to trip over.

The cabin gently swayed with the wind from the storm carrying on outside. With a slight wiggle of his hips, he shimmied further under the heavy, periwinkle blanket before letting out a sad sigh. He stared at the dust-covered window. The nearly new king-sized mattress inside his apartment was calling his name, but he wasn’t sure if he would ever feel it soothe his now aching joints. He knew he would stare until the night swapped out with the light of day. Racing thoughts made the jagged rocks and pointed tree limbs of the forest flash through his mind as lightning cracked through the sky, briefly filling the dim room with light. He imagined his elbows or knees pointed in awkward directions after another clumsy trip or fall over the maze-like forest floor. Crossing his arms over his chest to try and comfort his growing anxiety, Arthur could feel his ribs through his tattered shirt. If help never came, would he be a cracked open tree or a moss-covered rock?