High, the leaves ebb back and forth in a silent breeze. A slight sway in the boughs. The long, deep shadows of the cedars tick by with the minor rotation of the earth as it angles itself against the sun, hidden along with the sky and the sound of the wind beyond the buffer of the canopy. While these minor components make small gestures, the trunks of the cedars loom, unmoving, as they have for centuries. Their reddish flesh has since been covered by moss at their bases and by ivy higher up. A loamy green fur that traps thick clods of water and fosters a dense menagerie of fungus and insects.
There is an emerald glisten to the whole forest. It shines in the baubles of dew that rest on the drooping fronds of bracken. Their coarse leaves dominate the underbrush, occasionally giving way to fallen trunks, junior cedars and small splashes of colour, like the delicate white buds of the foamflower or thorny bushes of mahonia, where waxwings flutter, taking stock of their harvest of blue fruit. The understory is largely clear, opening airways for towhees and robins to fly and chatter between the massive trunks, and is only perforated by the thin approaches of the young trees.
From the forest floor, it makes for a concentrated image. Green and moist and singing. Life drips down and multiplies, seething in the electric mist of sun and rain. Undercurrents of energy bristle here, so strong they threaten to burst from their barky conduits. The man feels it below the sodden blanket of pine needles at his feet.
He is making his way home. To a stranger, each sweeping gaze would look as homogeneous at the last. Yet to him, there are familiar details that give away the forest’s secrets and orient him between the giant fins of the cedars, gnarled and bloated like old men’s knuckles, and the impenetrable brush of ferns. There is a massive branch here, forming an arch which he must pass through. Next, a tree felled by a storm, the slithering scars of lightning burned into a web on its old flesh, which points him exactly west, to the stream.
The earth grows soft. The mossy rocks give way to deeper patches of sodden soil. Around the stream is a dense bracket of swamp. The surface water is hardly visible between the thick stems of flora that thrive here and the clouds of algae and pondweed that run through it. If he didn’t know where to step, losing his boots would be the least of his concerns. A man can disappear into the bowels of this forest with not so much as a light plop.
When he reaches the stream itself he pauses. Something has changed. Usually, there are some stepping stones that he uses to cross the narrow water. Instead, there are planks of wood resting here, as if waiting to be constructed into something larger. His gaze follows the planks up to a walkway that extends up through the parted foliage, hacked away to allow its passage, as it parallels the river and connects to a small bridge. This new apparition connects two stony verges that flank the stream, making a steep valley that usually captures the setting sun perfectly between their naturally formed arrowhead. But now the sun is blocked by the assembly of planks, stripped logs, and iron nails which quite happily sits in its new place in the forest.
The man blinks, thinking perhaps this is some odd fever induced by the wet heat. He follows the molasses flow of the stream down from the stone valley. There’s an eddie where, usually, the crocodile sits like a swollen log, gazing out at the world with beady, annoyed eyes. The man sees it every day, waiting in the slow circulation of water. What it waits for, he doesn’t know. He’s often thought that it simply wants to say hello, albeit from a comfortable distance. Today, it is not in its usual place. This makes him worry because he cannot see it and it is not hard to imagine that perhaps it can see him.
He quickly crosses the planks that sit over the top of the stepping stones. His path continues west, but now, out of pure curiosity and a little agitation, he follows the wooden walkway upstream to the bridge. The fresh pine smell of newly-cut wood is heavy on the air, an affront to the ancient, musty aroma of the forest. He wonders if this construct makes the trees angry, and what their wrath might bring about.
When he gets up to the bridge, he sees its constructor, kneeling down on the bridge itself, tightening a rope fastening to one of the railing poles.
‘Oh, howdy,’ says the builder.
‘Howdy yourself,’ says the man.
The builder stands, wiping the sweat from his brow with a gloved hand. He’s a young man, probably half the age of himself. His cheeks are flushed from a day of graft and his expression suggests he’s quite proud of himself and quite glad that there is someone here to see it.
‘Just about finishing up for the day,’ says the builder when the older man offers up nothing else. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Uh-huh,’ says the man. ‘How’s that?’
‘Oh, well, to do the rest.’
The older man stares.
‘Make some more paths across, you know?’ says the builder, his previous glow diminished. He looked bothered now, as if the obvious isn’t connecting with this strange old wanderer. ‘Figured lots of folk go around this place. If we make some paths, they can go right on through.’
‘Huh,’ is all the old man says.
There’s something twitching inside him. An irritation on the edge of his old mossy heart. He never sees anyone here. He begins to see that perhaps that is the allure of this place. Solitude from people, replaced with an abundance of wild things. Now not only is there a person here, but also the promise of others to follow. It doesn’t stir him to anger, but makes him grasp inward, as if to save himself from slipping from an axis that has suddenly tilted.
‘Yeah,’ says the builder. ‘Was thinking of maybe damming the place too. Make the paths downstream easier to ford.’
‘Dam,’ the old man says absently. ‘Like flood?’
The builder nods, looking a little nervous now.
‘What about the cedars?’
The builder looks around at the mighty trees around him, as if seeing them for the first time. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘well they’ll be okay with water won’t they?’
‘The other plants won’t. And they need ‘em.’
‘For what?’ says the builder, indignant.
The old man frowns at this ignorance. ‘Livin,’ he says.
‘Oh,’ says the builder.
‘Yeah,’ says the old man.
They stand in the chorus of wild birds, nattering away in the understory. The frogs have started to croak in the rushes. The old man can feel the heat fading along with the amber glow of the setting sun.
‘Well,’ says the builder, after an uncomfortable amount of time has passed, ‘guess I’ll see you around.’
The old man shrugs. He turns back down the wooden walkway and runs his hand along the rail, saying nothing more to the bewildered builder. He winces as he catches a splinter in his finger.
At the bottom of the walkway, back by the stream, he sucks out the splinter and tastes the tiny iron of the blood drop that comes after it. Then he stands, facing the way he thinks is home. He’s a little turned around by the unexpected conversation. The walkway and the bridge have changed the usual skyline. He’s never had cause to face this way before.
He reorients himself, as if he’d just crossed the stepping stones, which aren’t there anymore, and sets off in a direction he thinks is home. All the while, a grinning uncertainty grows heavier in his chest.
Above, the cedars lean in for the first time in an age.
Paddy Dobson
23rd July 2020