We met while hiking through a national park. We’d both driven hours to get there, parked our cars near the entrance to the trail, put on sturdy boots and spray jackets, made our way into the forest, followed the track down to a small bridge. But that was before we knew each other. What came after was something different entirely.
We first spoke at one of the lookouts, lone figures in a dense fog. We shared an appreciation of the air against our skin, of the scent of dirt after rain. We shared a thermos of coffee. We agreed that neither of us wanted to go back.
We climbed over the railing and into the brush, removed our shoes, our socks, felt the soil between our toes, and walked on, wet fronds brushing our faces, each step taking us further from the lives we wanted to forget, towards lives we couldn’t predict but knew must be better.
We built new ones, forging ahead, staying out of view of other hikers, making the forest our own, until our equipment, our cars, our jobs, were not just distant memories but things that never were at all.
We grew flowers on our fingertips and bark along our thighs, moss over our faces and leaves from our scalps. We stood in a clearing with the other trees, took root ourselves, allowed our branches to reach out into the crisp sky, to seek the sun and feel the wind. They were swaying, always swaying.
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A Quick Recommendation
The first line of this story, ‘Inside Where You Belong’ by Kate Crosby, published in PANK, immediately hooked me, implying stranger and darker things to come. What I loved about the rest of it was the way it intertwined global events, news filtering through from different places, with development of a character and family over a very short space of time.
The first bird to fall didn’t make news.
The tone is also perfect, helping the story build to something deeply personal amidst widespread chaos. I’ve read this a few times now, and every time am struck by how close the characters feel over the course of what is really only a few paragraphs.
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