No Fear - Oscar Schiff

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It’s like the bristled pines make impenetrable walls around me. Boy, the forest gets pretty around this time of year. I continue walking, stopping occasionally to smell the wildflowers. The trail comes to an intersection and I go left. As the path continues, it gets more and more vague, nearly disappearing and then appearing again. That's alright I tell myself. It’s probably best to get as far away as possible. I have to walk around a large mossy boulder. Past the large stone, the path is nonexistent. The ground is alive with red flowers. The petals open up with yellow pistils sticking out, looking at the slim beams of sunlight through the dense canopy. The approximately five-foot patch of them looks almost like a pool of blood.

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I pull my backpack off from my shoulders and set it down on the slightly damp and fertile ground. After wiping sweat from my forehead with the sleeve of my fleece jacket, I open it. Inside, I had packed a couple of energy bars, my old baseball cap, a map, and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. The sun is around the middle of the sky. I must have left at around nine or ten in the morning. I grab a bar and rip it open. I eat it slowly while looking at a gnarled tree about thirty feet away. It looks vaguely like a twisted face. A knot in the trunk forms a crooked, screaming mouth. The nose is a broken branch and a limb grows from one of its squinted eyes. The more I look at it, the more surreal it appears, like some alien form. I look away. I crumple up the wrapper and stow it away in my bag. I zip up the bag and stand up. My legs have fallen asleep and I sway for a moment before continuing on. My throat feels dry and sore. God Dammit, I forgot to bring water. The birds seem to mock me from the canopy. I keep going. The trees are getting closer together as I make my way deeper into the forest, pines and birches towering overhead.

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After a while, it gets colder, as if the trees are insulating any heat from entering. The bird sounds have subsided, replaced by a loud silence that rings in my ears. Because of this, I turn my head at the smallest of sounds, a twig snapping, or rustling in the bushes. I try to stay in the more open parts of the forest, but the brush seems to draw me in, grabbing me by the ankles and trying to eat me up. I notice a tree that has been scratched, bark torn off and claw marks carved deep into the sap-filled interior. My mind goes straight to bears. Dad used to tell me about the bears of this forest; big grizzly bears with powerful claws, sharp enough to tear away your skin like wrapping paper. I can hear running water all of a sudden. I’m parched and I begin to walk faster, following the soft trickling sound of the water source, I crash out of the bushes and to a steep drop-off. I try to slide down slowly but it doesn’t work and I tumble onto my chest at the muddy bank of the stream. I slowly sit up. My whole front is covered in mud and I’m shivering, but I reach my hands into the clear running water. It feels great, quenching my dry lips.

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I must have hurt my hand when I fell because it’s bleeding and it stings a little when I put it in the water. I put my hand to my waist, where the scabbard of my father’s knife is. I pull it out. It’s a pretty long hunting knife with an extremely sharp edge. It still has remnants of blood on it. I put it down next to me and I’m kneeling now. I sweep back my hair with my hand, and I probably get some blood in it, but I don’t care. I reach into my bag and pull out the unopened pack of Marlboro cigarettes. I tear off the plastic around it and open it, the cigarettes lined up like toy soldiers. I take one and stick it in my mouth, lighting it with my lighter from my pocket. My dad always hated it when I smoked. But that doesn’t matter now. Because I killed him. I grasp the hunting knife again and lean over the edge of the water, my arms shaking from the cold and the nerves. I wash it several times, making sure it’s spotless. I look at it, my face reflected on it. I take the cigarette out of my mouth and blow smoke as I remember driving the blade into his chest as he slept. A noise comes from the other side of the stream and I look up. I hold the knife at the ready and take a drag from the cigarette. Shaking more than ever now, I see the bear, tall and lumbering towards me. But I have no fear.