She fancied not the shine behind the pine—yet the way he spoke to her intrigued her endlessly.
“Come on, come on—you’re going to love this, baby.”
She found not the nerve to differ; she stumbled toward him with no regret.
“It’s something about the light of the moon. It’s something about the angle of the earth—it’s something about you and I.”
He led her down the corridors he never thought he could.
If there was any willpower within her, it found not the power to show. Her past triumphs lay awake in the night. Her insecurities tucked them in without indifference. Her confidence cracked and decayed and fell into a grave.
“You know what this is,” he told her over and over again, “You know this is right.”
If she had an answer, she could not recall. An owl’s shout was the only sound. They both heard it, resounding from all directions, but it came from only one place. The bats were overhead then and she knew it was ok.
“Don’t let me down now, my one and only. Don’t let me down.”
If she hadn’t realized she was holding his hand prior, she didn’t realize it then. The limpness of her body caught a breeze beneath the trees and it carried her onward in all its good graces. It was only natural. Then it stopped, and he was there instead.
The woods tripped them up and had its way with them. Through decrepit whispers it let them know its vines would thrive. Its fungi. Its filth. Its vines plunged into and soaked up everything. They sucked them dry from top to bottom, from the bottom up, the roots making wet slurping sounds like the last bit of water down a squalid drain. Like hungry jowls on meaty bones. Like being regurgitated by the earth only to be swallowed up and spit out again. Like her and him, as soon as he could get them there.
It wasn’t the orange around them; it was the lack thereof; it was darkest blue. The bluest black without achieving any such sufficient solidity.
Pitch black made their eyes roll with envy. Their souls told no tales. All they saw was orange.
“Are you ready, baby—are you ready like you said you were?”
If it were so she recalled no such agreement. Accountability escaped her. Recognition had been run over and lay out like roadkill, to be shoveled up and thrown away into nowhere.
The way the trees were swaying, it reminded her of herself: this way and that. This way, and that. And when the breeze blew just right, it brought back the echoes of that old owl, as well as all of her aspirations.
They arrived on a hilltop. She could not believe it to be true. Her hair blew wispy in the wind, just like she thought it might. Just like he knew it would.
“I knew you’d make it, baby. I just knew you would.”
They had made it further than he thought they would. Further than light could show. Further than light should show, he thought. The thought was something she already knew.
It wasn’t where she was supposed to go, but he thought it would work. He’d make it work; there was no other choice.
Gazing around at the barren landscape surrounding them—at the soft, shallow hill stopping sharp in the middle of the woods neither of them had ever known, he decided it was perfect.
“You never heard of digging then, I take it?”
She clasped her ears.
“You never knew what it was like for me?”
She cried out in silence.
“Carrying your corpse was a task you never had.”
She lay strewn about, lifelessly. Moonlit. Quiet.
It wasn’t that she was lifeless—more so, that life had flown past her. Like a honeybee. A hummingbird. Like a middle-aged mother stuck in the center of irretraceable regret.
He threw dirt on top of her. Non-stop, non-stop.
“You would’ve been the better half. The one to make her smile. You’d’ve made her proud. If only we’d’ve known her. If only I’d’ve known you.”
“I’M ALIVE!” he swore he heard her say.
“I’M HERE!” he imagined shrieking from her throat while he covered her with dirt.
She went down the corridors she never thought she could.
She remembered nothing.
She was reborn.
Ghost Town Theatre 