Where would you run to? Have you ever thought about it? If somebody broke into your house in the middle of the night. If you were chased on a dark road.
I’ve thought about it: climbing out a back window and heading to a neighbor’s door. Would that just bring it down on them? Would they be home? Could they call the cops? I’ve got the sweetest neighbors known to man next door. They’re Muslim and they’ve got three kids and they’d do their best to help me. They’d be terrified and sweet and non-violent and the cops would take their sweet time coming to help. They’d recognize the address; they’ve answered calls there before.
I think about running to a stranger’s house, that pool of yellow light in their windows shows someone’s home. Would they answer? Would they let me in?
I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think I might run into the woods.
If you grew up in the woods, maybe you know why. Have you ever noticed the way the dark falls between the trees? The way it knows you, when it’s your woods, the ones you grew up in. There may be fallen branches and rocks and wild animals, but there’s welcome there. That dark is kin to you.
Have you ever looked into the dark in woods that aren’t yours? Have you felt it? The weight. The wall. The watching. The cold. Maybe–maybe–you can win passage if you’re polite enough, humble enough. If you need badly enough and you pay it respect and what’s chasing you is the kind of arrogant human predator that thinks they can eat people, eat nature without paying the cost.
Have you ever been in a forest that didn’t like you at night? You can feel it closing in. You can feel it coming, right to the roots of your self-preservation. What? I don’t know. I’ve never been stupid enough to stay. But I know in my bones that the dark beneath the trees can eat those it doesn’t give permission to. I’d throw myself on its mercy, in most woods.
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