The Boy Who Lived in the Forest

There was a boy who lived in the forest. He lived in a house made of mud walls with a rock-hewn floor and a ceiling made of straw. His father had gone off long ago and disappeared, never to be seen again. His mother cursed herself with anger, became so consumed with her bitterness that she began to swallow herself. Her body conformed to the action, as if her limbs and spine were all curving in on themselves in order to be digested. Lines appeared in her face under sagging eyes and around terse, unflinching lips. Her words were bile and filled with the sort of poison that extrudes from dead and rotting things. She was mean, shallow, brutish, her skin the pale off-blue color of tombstones.

She had not always been this way. The boy remembered -- but only in a vague manner, in images that spun through him like the flashes of sunlight refracting through a sheen of turbulent ocean water as he gazed up from under the surface, swimming, that once her soul had not been so shriveled and prepared for self-consumption. She had not always been so occupied with herself that she saw others (mostly just him because she had no true friends) as either vessels for her own pleasure, or obstacles to the same. Once, it seemed she had had a soft and suppliant expression, a tender glisten in her eyes, and spoke with such warmth that her voice would send him easily to sleep. But that had been long ago. It was as though that person had left at exactly the same time his father did.

What the boy remembered of his father was more linear and devoid of imagery, associations that sprang up from the experience of daily life. The path down to the sea, for instance, covered with large gold leaves in autumn, moistened by rain, reminded him of his dad for a reason he could not understand. The smell of burning wood and white smoke in winter fires, and the texture and odor of old clay that is cracking, less malleable, and no longer fit to be molded, also suggested something paternal to him. His father, he thought, laughed like a goat, and likely had the dirty hooves of one, the same unsettled obstinate will. His father, he thought, was like one of the many streams that endlessly pulsed down through the rocks and gullies, fragmented into rivulets and tributaries until finally absconding into the sea.

The boy liked to follow the paths down to the ocean, particularly on days when he managed to finish the many chores his mother had given him. He would set out with a long stick that he had found, following the creeks to the ocean as though they were trails, fascinated by the fresh water that he drank, unlike the salty water of the sea. He explored, picking up various shells and rocks, lightweight driftwood that crumbled and broke easily, and heavier green pieces of wood with which he might dig in the sand or dirt. On one occasion, he became so immersed in the forest that he hadn’t quite made it to the beach before nightfall, and was startled when he heard in the distance what sounded initially like the long wail of a ship pulling into a harbor. He had been to the city once before long ago with his mother, had seen the crafts with their broad white sails, and amid the bustle of the market had seen the rough and tawdry, lean men who worked them, big men with rough and sunburned skin and deep bellowing voices, and garrulous growling laughter that seemed to frighten his mother.
Now he heard the long wail again and cocked his ear to listen more closely. The sound reverberated through the trees, bounced and echoed throughout the forest, and came to him with the elongated arms of mournful vowels, compelling him, calling him. It was his name that he heard! He thought instantly of his father, and his heart pounding, ran through the brush, pouncing from one rock to another to cross the river, balancing for a moment on the branch of a fallen tree, then, panting as the sun sank down at the edge of the world, listened intently.

“Faaaarrr-ell…” came the voice. Two syllables, the first more drawn out than the second, but without mistake his own name. “Faaaaarrr-ellll…”

The boy, whose name was Farrell, climbed down from the cliffs onto the sand, listening to the tide recede, then come in. The thought occurred to him that he was out too late, and his mother would make him pay, but he was too much entranced by the eerie voice to heed his own warning. He listened for it, standing in complete stillness. The voice came again, nearer, and a chill ran through him, his hair crawling as though he had been struck by lightning. It was nearer. He could see nothing but the inky water and the gray foam of waves clashing against the shore in the distance. Crickets sang behind him in the forest, and a slight autumnal breeze touched his cheeks. Farrell held his breath in intense anticipation. He would have tried to calm and slow the loud pounding of his own heart against his ribcage if he could have.

“FAAAARRR-…”

The boy shrieked, “I’m here! What is it? Who are you?” He held his walking stick tight in his grip as the voice, which emanated from the near darkness, diminished, cutting short the second syllable of his name.

(to be continued)