The Place

Early morning, just before dawn. Her favorite time of the day. She awoke to the sound of the ash trees tapping lightly on her window, at the bidding of the wind that rustled the leaves all around her. Now she lies in bed, eyes closed but wide awake, listening to the summons.

It is early, much too early for anyone else in her house to be awake. The yelling has ceased for a time. The relentless cracking and popping of a log fire, hungry for fuel, has finally stopped. There is nothing inside the house but total, complete silence.

She swings her feet out from under the blankets and places them deliberately on the carpeted floor. She dresses silently, holding her breath every time a floorboard creaks, or an unusual sound meets her ears.

The door downstairs is mercifully unlocked. Inch by inch, she pulls it open just enough and slips out into the morning. It closes with a soft click behind her.

The air is cool, brisk. It bites the tips of her lungs when she fills them with a deep breath. She pulls her sweater tighter around her.

At the edge of the forest, she hesitates for just a moment before plunging into the cover of the trees without looking back. They can take care of themselves.

Dry leaves crackle under her feet as she winds her way deeper into the forest. The path she is following is barely a trail, more of a line in the underbrush made by the constant searches for food by the deer nearby. She is careful not to disturb the branches of the sleeping trees around her.

As the Place gets nearer, her footsteps break into a run. They carry her over a boulder, under a fallen tree, through a puddle that splashes half-frozen water across the trail. Finally, the pond comes into view.

A final leap, and she soars over a bush and lands on the sandy bank. Her stop was too sudden; she freezes, looks around, holds her breath. But there was no one to hear her in the middle of the woods on a chilly morning.

Tiny ripples distort the reflection of the sky in the pond as a breeze trails its fingers along the surface. She shivers, but slips off her shoes and socks, leaving them in a haphazard pile on the sand. The first touch of her toes to the icy water sends goosebumps up her spine. She backs up, trips, and falls on the sand.

The soft sand caresses her as she runs a finger through it, drawing incomprehensible shapes and patterns. A memory, so sweet it is almost a dream, blossoms up from the drawings, filling her with a soft warmth that brings a smile to her face.

Closed eyes clench tighter. Her hand hangs limp. The cold that was sweet now bites. The memory disappears, almost as suddenly as it appeared. Instead she feels the tears that had threatened to drown her come back, sees the pain in his eyes, watches the wet footsteps fade under the sun. The footsteps that led away and never came back.

A birthday. A letter. A uniform. A date. A deployment. Another letter. A promise.

She stands up abruptly. The sand trickles from her clenched hand. She steps back toward the water.

She briefly considers rolling up the legs of her jeans, but slips them off. The jacket and shirt come off too, landing on the sand, now tinged with the slightest streaks of orange. Her naked body seems so small under the trees and the gray sky.

The next foot that splashes into the water cracks the thin film of ice Jack Frost brought with him overnight. Slowly, gradually, she moves forward in the water, the cold like a fire burning through her spirit. She feels her feet become numb; she is standing with the water lapping at her knees.

A breath of air across her flesh pushes more goosebumps up from her skin. There is an electric quality to the scene. Every color is brilliant, even without the sun’s illumination. Every movement – the tiniest rustling of leaves, the ripples on the water – catches her attention. Her eyes dart back and forth around the clearing and the pond under the trees.

“I could stay here,” she whispers to the sky. There is no answer. “I could stay here,” she repeats. “And never go back.”

A place without worries, a place without promises, a place without war and school and women and men. A place without pain, a place without fear. A place without fires, a place without heat.

The water slides silently up her legs, her stomach, her neck. She feels her feet kick nothing; the pond is much deeper here. Powerful strokes take her away from the sand, her clothes strewn across the beach recede into the pale orange that now tinges the world.

“I could stay here.”



A flock of birds, perched precariously in a treetop, takes flight into the sunrise. A doe and her fawn stop their foraging and their heads bolt upright, ears twitching as they listen for some sign of danger. A cannon, thousands of miles away, is fired by the last man standing. A place without pain, a place without heat, awaits its newcomers with a pale orange sky.