In the woods
When we arrived up north, my first thought was that I had never been surrounded by so much country before. I thought places like this just existed in movies, an exaggeration to show that a town was isolated and set in its ways. But everywhere I looked I could see old rusted barns with cows grazing outside.
At the gas station I saw white haired men wearing camouflage, looking at me with pale drooping eyes. And boys and girls with blonde hair and pink faces wearing blue jeans, baseball hats and cowboy boots; real cowboy boots, not the kind I picked up at L Train Vintage. Old women in long floral dresses stared at me as I looked over the Pringles. They made no secret of their staring and I made no secret of mine. We were aliens to each other, at least on the outside, and I wanted to shrink in my Breaking Bad T-shirt and booty shorts.
I remembered how I felt as a kid when my dad took me upstate to the Catskills and I met the locals. Like I had some vanity and laziness in my bones that people who lived in the woods didn’t seem to have. I was somehow both too sheltered and too mature. I had never been alone in the woods or gone for miles on my own but I did know what a blow job was, those Catskill kids did not.
Maya blended in more seamlessly, despite being the only Asian in a ten mile radius. She wore baggy shorts and a Harley-Davidson t-shirt and knew what she was looking for as she picked out gatorade and beef jerky. We were going to go into the woods to camp and dance like witches and reconnect with whatever we lost during our time in New York City. I was so excited to be free of everything that didn’t exist in the woods, like the internet and the way I looked in artificial lights.
I was from the city, I had never experienced the freedom of the woods, except for brief, stolen moments at summer camp, dipping into the trees when the counselors weren’t looking. I had dreamed of it though, growing up I imagined going into the woods and being young and existing away from the interested eyes of passing adults or cops or the men who got naked in the park and tried to talk to young girls. New York City provides a freedom that no one who lives out here could understand, but the country holds freedom too, a freedom that I couldn’t comprehend, that drew me nonetheless.
We got in our car and drove to a small parking lot on the side of the road. We carried all our supplies and followed a small trail. As we walked I felt like I could finally breathe free, even though pollen was stuffing my sinuses and the bugs stuck to me as if I was made of apple juice. Soon we stopped in a clearing and put our stuff down. There didn’t seem to be another person for miles who could disturb us in our revelries.
We set up our tent, and when we were done the sun was starting to set. Maya took out the acid and handed me a tab. We each put it on our tongue like a sacrament, and I felt my stomach lurch in fear and anticipation, ready to be led into a new world. We sat on the ground and talked for a long time telling stories; myths of kids we went to school with and their journeys through crowded parties and cozy bedrooms and holy classrooms, and dorm rooms filled with danger and illusion.
When the acid began to hit I realized how well I could see in the dark. I felt the trees breathing and shifting around me as if they were making a home for me in their body. Maya’s eyes looked big like dinner plates. I wanted to feel the air on my body, so I took off my shirt and saw my pale skin glowing like the moon beneath the trees. I felt like I was able to walk out of my cage, slither out of my skin and leave it behind.
It occurred to me that the world was a dark green, like the room in Van Gogh’s “The Potato Eaters.” I tried to explain this to Maya but my words didn’t come out the right way. She was staring up into the trees like she was searching for God. I wanted to help her find it, or at least point out whatever strange bird caught her eye.
We both took off our clothes and felt ourselves becoming part of the woods. And there was no shyness within us as we ran through the trees just to feel the wind on our skin.
I could sense the spirit of the woods around us, a spirit I may have once knew but had long since lost when my family came over to the new world on crowded boats and embedded in the Bronx. The forest was not a place of rules, it was not entirely a place of goodness either. It was a place of change, of chaos, my fate depended on the whims of the Gods that ruled this realm. They were old world Gods; they were selfish and impulsive and occasionally they were kind. And they could be watching at any time.
They didn’t consider us, like the Gods of the city do. They didn’t schedule their tantrums or their joy, it just comes on a whim and takes them. In New York City you can go inside to avoid the rain, but out here the thunder and storms don’t know you, and there is no way for you to know them.
When the rain started it came down all at once in heavy sheets. We ran out to a clearing and sat down and let it cover us and wash us clean. In the city the rain strips the paint from cars and poisons the plants, but out here it’s just water. It watered the grass and we watched the sky as lightning cracked across it like veins.
We laughed and our laughter was covered by rumbling, and we screamed and our screams were covered by the sound of cracks coming down on us. There were times when the sky would be lit up all around us by bolts, and all we could do was stare and take in their greatness. For so long I wanted a greatness of my own, to be huge and seen from all over, but looking up, I knew I didn’t need that. There was so much greatness around me already.
We went back to our tent and felt the rain coming down over our canvas roof. Somehow, the rain made the tent feel warmer, safer, smaller, because it kept us out of the big wide world. And we switched on the flash light and looked at the way our faces changed in its strange glowing beam.
We listened to the rain pounding above us, and we talked and talked and didn’t notice the edges of the canvas getting wet.
“Why does it always rain on camping trips?” she asked me. I told her I didn’t know.
It was a strange feeling, to make a home out in the storm. We were in the bedroom of the wild, surrounded by a creature that could kill us in many different ways, but we were safe and sound, cradled in its strange and unpredictable arms.
All it would take was for lightning to strike our tent, setting us ablaze. Or for some wild animal to come out in the rain looking for a meal and rip the roof off our tent. The canvas would be no match for its claws and its hunger. The woods are where killers hide, maybe a man could find us, and rip our tent open with a gleaming knife, or his own hand, just a hook on the stump of his arm.
Or maybe we would be found by something stranger, some creature from another world. It would lead us away from our tent, and we would be found miles away smelling like gasoline and suffering from hypothermia in the summer.
I don’t understand the things that live in the woods. The bigfoots, the skinwalkers, the children with black eyes who wander out of the trees into your quiet town and knock on your door to ask for a glass of water. The women in white who run listlessly out of the woods onto the road, where they can call out to you and leave handprints on your car before returning again into the trees. The trees that speak to you and shift around you until you are hopelessly lost and can never escape their undying clutches.
These creatures from another world with unknown motivations that play tricks on your body and mind. They are never caught on camera except for quick blurry shots. I know about them from TV specials, youtube videos and scattered breathless stories.
The forest is where the strange things hide, though I’m not sure where their true home is. I’m not sure if they even exist, but I hear about their footprints everywhere. They leave behind strange mysteries.
There is such beauty and confusion in the uncapturable things in the dark woods. Out here the rules that bind life are not so strict, out here one can be whisked away by fairies and replaced with a look alike without anyone knowing any better.
Out here there is no one to talk to, the mind wanders, and one sees things they don’t want to bring home with them.
Me and Maya fell asleep like Hansel and Gretel in the dominion of the witch, but somehow we were not afraid. We knew that we could not control what happens out here, that this is not a land we had much power in. It was our choice to step into the unpredictable land of trees and stars.
When we woke up the next morning we found our tent flooded and the light was once again bright and cool. Much of the mystery of the woods had faded in the morning, we were damp and shivering and could see every twig in front of us. We packed our stuff and hauled it back to our car with radio and four walls. We drove out of the woods and made our way back to the city that I knew, and at least somewhat understood.
Soon we were back to a land where the street lights go on each night and the bus runs the same lines every day and you are never truly without another human around you. Though sometimes, on empty and gloomy nights, you may meet a stranger that doesn’t quite make sense to you. A person with unknown motivations and an unknown tie to this world. If they approach you do not panic, they probably just want to know you.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Vivian Lipson is a college student and writer who enjoys writing poetry and short stories. Her work has been published in online literary magazines. She lives in New York City and loves to read and write strange and spooky stories.
Instagram: @oddviv
