Redwood

Featuring a couple in the woods

coming up next…

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They stand tall. Imposing, like the legs of giants, like the fingers of God. In silence, we look up at the fractals the sky forms with a canopy of leaves. I feel so small underneath the stars, which I’ve never seen glow so brightly. A firefly flickers quickly above me, almost mimicking them. The hike has been relentless yet empowering. Even though we still have some ways to go, I stopped to catch my breath and admire the landscape. Jamie gently touches my shoulder.

“Are you ready to keep going now?” he asks, offering a bottle of water. I heave a deep breath before I can respond.

“Sure,” I say. I decline the water and move once again. If I was alone out here, my pace would be much slower. Jamie knows this, but he lets me push myself.

Fireflies continue to dot the trail as the area around us darkens. I wonder if anyone has ever been on the path this late. The air smells of nothing, like nobody has ever set foot near the forest. Still, I have Jamie by my side, his mere presence warm and comforting. When I look over at his face, however, I see nothing aside from his cheek briefly illuminated by a firefly. I stop and turn towards him.

I laugh nervously. “Did you pack flashlights? I literally can’t see you at all.”

He stops. “I have something to tell you.” It takes me too long to respond, so he thinks I’m still hung up on the flashlights: “Oh—here,” he says, holding out an antique-looking yellow flashlight. My breathing slightly more stunted now, I respond to his previous statement.

“What is it you have to tell me?” I ask.

His breath shakes. “I think it’s kinda o-obvious, don’t you? This, I—I don’t know any other way to say it…” The words slip clumsily out of his lips.

“I’ve never loved you.”

The glow of the fireflies is extinguished. A creak in the redwood trees above us shakes the leaves, the first sign of any movement since we stopped walking. I try to speak, to yell, to cry, nothing. Never loved you. Never loved you. Jamie tries to correct himself like he can read my thoughts:

“Okay, I did love you. In the beginning of our relationship—” Five years ago, I remind myself. “Things were great, but, I don’t know. I’ve felt this disconnect for a while now. I thought this trip would change things…but I guess it hasn’t. I know it’s sudden. I just think we should take some sort of a break.”

“A break…” I mumble. He starts again.

“Do you remember Kendra from college?” Yes. “I’ve been talking to her…and we hung out once or twice. It’s nothing serious, but being with her the couple times made me realize—”

Jamie’s voice fades away into the darkness of the forest as I tune him out. Five years. Kendra. Disconnect. What a vague and cutting word. My head gets hot with rage. The darkness of the redwoods burns to white, and I feel something crawl on my right arm. I nearly pull a muscle in my neck, jolting violently to look at my arm: a firefly has landed on me. Jamie looks confused at my stillness in the bright haze. Fireflies gather around me, planting themselves along my skin—first as a luminous sleeve along my right arm, then a radiating necklace burning hot and tracing my veins. Jamie is blinded by the light, my barbaric truth. Above our heads, the trees rattle and shake.

Jamie starts to talk, a sentence fragment: “You don’t have to—”

The fireflies extend from my body to ensnare Jamie. The starry bugs crawl up his face. The trees sing. Fireflies pour into his eyes and ears as he screams.

The lights go out. The forest darkens again, and Jamie’s old yellow flashlight flickers to reveal pools of blood scattered beneath his body. I lean against a redwood tree and slide towards the ground, looking straight above me to avoid the sight of the corpse. The trees stand massive and still. A black sky shadows the leaves. I’m hollow here, captured by the dusk and the silent void.